Katerina Jebb

Katerina Jebb is a British contemporary artist whose work explores systems of classification, reproduction, and display, particularly within museums and archives. She is best known for her large-scale photographic works produced using flatbed and museum scanning technologies, which isolate and magnify objects from institutional collections, transforming them into highly detailed, monumental images. Jebb’s practice frequently engages with questions of authorship, originality, and the politics of representation. By employing scanning processes normally associated with documentation and conservation, she removes objects from their historical or cultural contexts and presents them as visual data, emphasizing surface, texture, and form.

Technique Katerina Jebb’s practice replaces the traditional camera with a high-resolution scanner to create life-sized, highly detailed images. The digital scanner operates through a precise mechanical and optical sequence that converts a physical object into a high-resolution digital image. The trajectory of the scanner refers both to the physical movement of its internal components and to the path of light and data during the scanning process.

"I watched her scan the intricately hand-stitched, Nile-blue silk corset worn by Marie Antoinette in 1793. She made 21 passes, 12 for the front, nine for the back. The result, after adjustment in Photoshop, revealed minute details. Such perceptible, nearly touchable, clarity isn’t possible with a lens camera, but is ideal for museums that want to display objects too fragile for even short-term exposure. That clarity convinced the conservators of this garment to allow her to scan it in the first place."

Jeff Rian, Crossing Eros, Deus Ex Machina, Katerina Jebb, Musée Réattu, Skira, 2016

"In Jebb’s works, life overflows, immediately exceeds the frame the artist defines by means of the scanner through which she approaches, as closely as possible, the body of the woman posing. This woman is not a professional model; she is a friend, and it is from that intimacy that the nude emerges. From this bodily closeness—this body-to-body encounter—because Jebb herself is fully engaged in the pose. The effort does not rest entirely on the naked woman; the artist too must remain motionless, hold her breath, carry the scanner—several kilos—at arm’s length, one millimeter from the body around which she moves, holding the position for long seconds, then starting again, dozens and dozens of times."

Louise Chennevière, Katerina Jebb, Untitled Nudes, Semaine n.519, Immédiats, 2026

Exhibitions

Museum Solo Exhibitions

Musée Réattu, Arles, France, Deus ex Machina, Retrospective, 2016-2017 V&A, London, Elizabeth Parker, 2021

Museum Group Exhibitions The Whitney Museum, New York, "The Warhol Look: Glamour, Style and Fashion" 1998 Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany, "Avantgarderobe, Kunst und Mode im 20. Jahrhundert" 1999 Musée Réattu, Arles, France,"Still and Living Objects and Women", 2008 Musée Réattu, Arles, France, "Chambre d'Echo", 2009 Musee Bourdelle, Paris, Madame Grés, La Couture A L’oeuvre, Life Size Composite Scans, 2011, Musée Réattu, Arles, France, Acte V, 2012 MOMU, Antwerp, Belgium, Madame Grés Sculptural Fashion, 2012 Palais de Tokyo, Paris, The Festival of Autumn, "The Future Will Last A Very Long Time" 2012 Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, The Inventory of Balthus, 2014 Musée Réattu, Arles, France, Oser la photographie, 2015-2016 Musée Réattu, Arles, France, Rencontres à Réattu, 2017 The Worthing Museum, Worthing, England, Isolation Chamber Vacation, 2017 Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome, L’istante e l’eternità. Tra noi e gli antichi, 2023 Art Science Museum, Singapore, Laid Bare, Frida's Inner World, 2024 Eye Museum, Amsterdam, Tilda Swinton Ongoing, 2025 Musée Réattu, Arles, France, Réattu Réinventé, 2026

Gallery and Group Exhibitions Art Gallery of the General Council, Aix en Provence, France, curator Olivier Saillard, 2009 Contemporary Art Space of Dudelange, Luxembourg, "Faire Peau de l'Inconscient" 2009 The Barbican Centre, London, The Curve Gallery, video installation for Acne Studios 2009 British Film Institute Southbank, United Kingdom, Birds Eye View Film Festival 2011, Simulacrum & Hyperbole, 2011 La Chapelle Balthus La Rossiniere, Switzerland, Le Tablier De Balthus, Documentary Film & Life Size Composite Scans, 2011 Nuit Blanche Paris, Les Docks Cité de la Mode et du Design, Katerina Jebb, The Future Will Last A Very Long Time, 2012 Vara Fine Arts VPL, New York, Second Skin, 2012, Art Paris Grand Palais, Paris, Analix Gallery Geneva, 2012 FIAC Hôtel de Miramion, Paris, Spot – Balice Hertling in collaboration with Nilufar and Giò Marconi Gallery, 2013 The Balthus Foundation, Switzerland, Le Tablier de Balthus, 2014 Festival of Arles, Arles, France, L'Arlesienne, 2014 Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, The Written Trace, 2015 Transition Gallery, London, Isolation Chamber Vacation, 2016 Dior Gallery, 7 Studies on Haute Couture, 2023 Beaux Arts de Paris, France, Dior J'Adore!, 2023 L'Hotel, Paris, France, De Profundis Oscar Wilde, 2023 Giovanni's Room, Los Angeles, Language, Nudity, Smoking, 2024 Sotheby's, Paris, Attention, Fragile !, 2024 Fosun Foundation, Shanghai, Miss Dior – Stories of a Miss, 2025 7L Library, Paris, Language Nudity Protest, 2025 Gallery Banane D'Or, Hyères, France, Blondes Of Your Childhood, 2026

Permanent Collections Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France Musée Réattu, Arles, France V&A Museum, London, United Kingdom

Publications

Books The Warhol Look, Glamour, Style, Fashion, Mark Francis, Schirmer and Mosel Verlag, 1997 Musée Galliera, Paris Haute Couture, Olivier Saillard et Anne Zazzo,(éditions Skira Flammarion, Sophie Laporte, 2012) Deus Ex Machina, Katerina Jebb, exposition 2 juillet-31 décembre 2016, Musée Réattu / catalogue sous la direction de Pascale Picard 2016, Volez Voguez Voyagez, Louis Vuitton Catalogue, Assouline, 2016 Musée Réattu, Arles, France, Oser la photographie, 2015-2016 Il Museo Effimero Della Moda, Catalogo della mostra, Palazzo Pitti, Marsilio, 2017 Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018 Corpus, Frida Kahlo par Katerina Jebb, Paris Musées / Palais Galliera, 2022 L'istante e l'eternità. Tra noi e gli antichi, Museo Nazionale Romano, Electa, 2023 Image d'Images, Katerina Jebb, Just An Idea Books, 2024