Mona Kuhn

Mona Kuhn (born 1969 in São Paulo, Brazil) is a Brazilian-born American contemporary photographer best known for her large-scale photographs of the human form and essence. An underlying current in Kuhn's work is her reflection on our longing for spiritual connection and solidarity. As a result, her approach is unusual in that she develops close relationships with her subjects, resulting in images of remarkable intimacy. Kuhn's work shows the human body in its natural state while simultaneously re-interpreting the nude as a contemporary canon of art. Her work often references classical themes, has been exhibited internationally, and is held in several collections including the J. Paul Getty Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.

Born in São Paulo, Brazil to parents of German ancestry, Mona Kuhn lives and works in Los Angeles, United States.

Early life Mona Kuhn began taking photographs at age 12, when her parents gave her a Kodak camera for her birthday. Kuhn has attributed her interest to her early formative years:

"I didn't grow up with cousins and I didn't grow up with grandparents … so I think I always had, since I was a child, a slight inner need to bond or to create a small family. I think that the people that I photograph, if I look at all my series, were all people that could have been my extended family. That's how I treat them. And that's the real little seed that maybe comes from infancy."

She moved to the United States in 1992 to attend Ohio State University and then furthered her studies at the San Francisco Art Institute, moving to San Francisco at the height of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Kuhn has noted that her artistic influences shift as she is always looking to what is next and eager to learn something new, but has said: "I learned the most by looking at Richard Diebenkorn's composition, Lucian Freud's relationship with models, Georgia O'Keeffe's subtleties and Lee Miller's courage."

Art career Kuhn chose the nude as the focus of her work because it represents a timeless canon and she was interested in the idea of the body as residence. Her early work focused on details of the body in black and white; she is quoted as saying:

"I was not yet comfortable photographing the full figure. As I became more comfortable and as I stepped back with the camera and started seeing more of the environment, I realized right away that color was very important … that color was all around and balancing color became very important for me, and it also became a source of inspiration. Every new series starts with me imagining a palette; and then I grow from there."

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Kuhn described her approach to photographing the nude saying: "Photographing someone in the nude is my attempt to reach that moment of perfect balance, the light of awareness in the way we perceive life to be. The nude is present in my work not as a one-dimensional physical manifestation, but rather as a proof of our being, our presence in time, and ultimately caring for what will be lost." She further explains, "I'm most comfortable representing the nude as minimal, timeless, somewhat monastic, and mostly pensive. I enjoy the nuances, the elegance of simplicity; the rustic forms because it brings us close to our own nature and sense of self. My works are not meant to be of this time, but to transcend, in its basic form, the elements of time." In 2011, Kuhn released Bordeaux Series, also with a monograph published by Steidl, which is a collection of traditional portraits and landscapes. Kuhn's work has been described as "intimate and sensuous," "dreamlike" and "classical" in composition and her approach is unusual in that she develops close relationships with her subjects, resulting in images of remarkable intimacy. Kuhn describes her relationship with her subjects saying: "My best work starts when they forget they are naked. We entered a parallel reality, something that is lifted from the everyday, a quiet moment that is floating there."

In 2018, Kuhn released two monographs: She Disappeared into Complete Silence (Steidl) and Bushes & Succulents (Stanley Barker). Kuhn selected American architect Robert Stone's glass house in the California desert as the setting for She Disappeared into Complete Silence saying: "In a way, the glass house with mirrors felt like an extension of my own camera, and the perfect setting for the series "She Disappeared into Complete Silence." In that space, we were able to push representation into a series of images emphasizing a refracted presence and its metaphors. Many of the images were shot by observing tangents, and I enjoyed working with variations of basically the same material: sand, glass, and mirrors."

In the same year, Kuhn presented her first immersive installation piece, Experimental, a 5,000-square-foot exhibition at The Fruit in Durham, North Carolina. Writer Julie M. Hamilton explains "In Experimental, Kuhn employs video projections, vinyl installation, and other mixed media to build her photos into an environment in which spectators can contemplate and deconstruct notions of the self. In this sense, the audience is the exhibit's subject, performing the work as a participant." Kuhn explains that the immersive installation surrounds guests with sounds, images and projections that allow them to interact with her artwork, rather than simply observing it passively. Her photography, featured in the installation, utilizes a desert landscape and light to symbolically portray human self-discovery in a natural environment. Kuhn's experimentation with reflections and light either reveals the interior of a subject or enshrouds them in shadow. By controlling the effects of light, Kuhn gives the appearance that her subjects are disappearing into the landscape. The volume includes previously unseen work and features images highlighting underlying themes from throughout Kuhn's career, namely her reflection on humanity's longing for spiritual connection and solidarity. Kuhn's photographs are accompanied with texts by Rebecca Morse, Chris Littlewood, Darius Himes and Simon Baker and an interview with Elizabeth Avedon, providing insights into Kuhn's creative process and the ways in which she works with her subjects and settings. Inspired by a love letter written by renowned midcentury architect Rudolph Schindler to an anonymous woman, the exhibition centered around Kuhn’s visual interpretation of the woman, photographed at the Schindler House on Kings Road in West Hollywood. Kuhn collaborated with composer Boris Salchow, who created an original score for the exhibition. In 2023, Kunsthaus-Göttingen in Germany featured a large-scale exhibition curated by Gerhard Steidl, spanning three floors and comprising multimedia pieces, solarized prints, artifacts from Schindler’s archive, and Kuhn’s own publications. In 2024, Kuhn presented Between Modernism and Surrealism at Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York City, where solarized photographs from Kings Road were on view alongside artworks by Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, Dora Maar, Erwin Blumenfeld, and Bill Brandt. In a review of the exhibition, writer Loring Knoblauch remarks, “What’s intriguing about these pairings is that Kuhn’s use of solarization is hardly ever truly surreal or deliberately jolting; instead she uses the technique to create a kind of lyrical mystery that fits the underlying narrative of the unknown woman in Schindler’s life. Kuhn envisages this figure as seductively ethereal, passing through Schindler’s house like a spirit and haunting his daydreams like an impressionistic hallucination. In this way, she’s redirected solarization in her own direction, infusing it with a fresh blast of energy and life.”

Other professional activities In addition to fine art photography, Kuhn has an extensive career with fashion and editorial work. She shot Bottega Veneta's resort 2012 campaign and has collaborated with Chanel and Dior. She has photographed for numerous publications, including Numéro, Le Monde, Harper's Bazaar, and W (magazine). Her portrait subjects include Tom Hiddleston, Sarah Paulson and Liev Schreiber.

Kuhn has been invited to curate exhibitions, most recently curating a show for The Billboard Creative, which placed works by emerging and established artists on billboards across Los Angeles. She curated Under My Skin at Flowers Gallery in New York City in 2013 and juried (Un)Clothed at The Center for Fine Art Photography, also in 2013.

Kuhn teaches at UCLA and ArtCenter College of Design and has been an independent scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles since 1998.

Selected exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions: 2024 Mona Kuhn: The Schindler House, A Love Affair, Galerie XII, Los Angeles 2024 Mona Kuhn: Between Modernism and Surrealism, Houk Gallery, New York, NY 2023 Mona Kuhn: Kings Road, Galerie XII, Paris, France 2023 Mona Kuhn: Kings Road, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta 2023 Mona Kuhn: Kings Road, Kunsthaus Göttingen 2021 Mona Kuhn: Works, Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York 2021 Mona Kuhn: Works, Flowers Gallery, London 2021 Mona Kuhn: Works, Galerie XII, Los Angeles + Paris + Shanghai 2021 Mona Kuhn: 835 Kings Road, Art, Design and Architecture Museum, Santa Barbara 2020 Still Light, Jardin du Bra'haus, Montée du Château, Clervaux, Luxembourg 2020 Mona Kuhn: Early Depictions, Flowers Gallery, London 2020 Intimate, UP Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan 2019 She Disappeared into Complete Silence, Cite de l'Image, Clervaux, Luxembourg 2019 Mona Kuhn: Intimate, UPGallery, Taipei, Taiwan 2019 Bushes and Succulents, Euqinom Gallery, San Francisco 2019 Mona Kuhn: She Disappeared, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta 2018 Mona Kuhn: Experimental, Fruit Factory, Durham Triangle, North Carolina 2018 Mona Kuhn: New Works, Part II, Galerie Catherine Hug, Paris, France 2018 Mona Kuhn: Selected Works, Porch Gallery, Ojai, California 2017 Mona Kuhn: The First Chapter, Euqinom Projects, San Francisco, California 2016 Mona Kuhn: New Works, Galerie Catherine Hug, Paris, France 2016 Mona Kuhn: Acido Dorado, Galeria Pilar Serra, Madrid, Spain 2015 Private, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna, Austria 2015 Private, Flowers Gallery, London, England 2015 Private, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta 2014 Acido Dorado, Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York 2014 Acido Dorado, Flowers Gallery, London 2024 Terrible Beauty, Gmunden Photo Festival, Austria 2022 Memories of Perception, Galerie Stephan Witschi, Zurich, Switzerland 2022 Undressed, Falsterbo Art Museum, Sweden 2021 Beyond Appearances, Kunstraum, Brooklyn, New York 2021 Keeper of the Hearth, Houston Center for Photography, Texas 2021 Women On Women, Galerie XII, Los Angeles 2020 Unseen: 35 Years of Collecting Photographs, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2020 Isolation: Solitary & Suspended, Flowers Gallery, London, UK 2020 14th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards Exhibition, Mediterranean House of Photography, Barcelona 2020 A Handful of Dust, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan 2020 Picturing Roland Barthes, Meadows Museum of Art, Louisiana 2019 Her Ground: Women Photographing Landscape, Flowers Gallery, London, UK 2019 From Cosmic to the Domestic, The Polygon, Vancouver, Canada 2019 Contemporary II, Flowers Gallery, London, UK 2018 Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works, New York Public Library, New York 2018 Haute Photographie, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2018 A Handful of Dust, UCR/California Museum of Photography, Riverside, California 2018 Staged, PhotoFairs, San Francisco, California 2018 This is Not a Selfie, Williamson Gallery, Pasadena, California 2017 A Handful of Dust, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK 2017 Nudes, Gallery Grob, Geneva, Switzerland 2017 Spring Show, Flowers Gallery, London, UK 2017 JAM!, The Billboard Creative, Los Angeles, California 2017 Private at Art Rotterdam, The Ravestijn Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2017 Poems at Art Geneve, Gallery Grob, Geneva, Switzerland 2016 Out of Obscurity, Flowers Gallery, London, UK 2016 Contemporary California Artists, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California 2016 Love Potions, Maloney Fine Art, Los Angeles 2015 The Billboard Creative, Los Angeles 2014 Human Nature: Boomoon, Nadav Kander and Mona Kuhn, Flowers Gallery, London, England 2013 Image Search, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida 2013 Staking Claim, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego 2013 Under My Skin: Contemporary Nudes, Flowers Gallery, New York 2013 Spring Photography Selection, Flowers Gallery, London Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California Hammer Museum, Los Angeles Griffin Museum, Winchester, Massachusetts George Eastman House Museum, Rochester Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland Musée de la Photographie de Charleroi, Belgium Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Japan Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japan Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California Perez Art Museum Miami, Miami, Florida Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin The Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation, New York di Rosa Foundation, San Francisco, California Buhl Foundation, New York, New York Sir Elton John Collection, United Kingdom Paul Allen Collection, Seattle, Washington Allen Thomas Jr. Collection, North Carolina Schwarz Contemporary Art Collection, Berlin, Germany Nicolaus von Oesterreich Collection, Frankfurt, Germany

Books

Awards

The Stieglitz Award (2021) The Julia Margaret Cameron Award (2019)