Agnes Scherer

Agnes Scherer (born in 1985, Germany) lives and works in Salzburg and Berlin. She studied painting at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf with Peter Doig and Enrico David.

Scherer’s work develops unique forms of presentation by inscribing handmade artefacts into holistic theatrical frameworks. With her elaborate operettas – of which she writes the scenarios and participate in the conception of the music - and narrative installations, she creates complex pictorial work that resists immediate objectification and commodification, instead demanding from viewers a heightened level of focus and engagement. A persistent questioning that runs through her art- making aims at power relations and their underlying psychologies. Drawing from analyses of art history – the artist has studied it numerous years - anthropological and cultural history, Scherer adopts artistic strategies that originally served the consolidation of power through the hierarchy of representation and repurposes them with critical intent. Using anachronisms and projections, her work often illustrates the uncanny ways in which historical systems, economies and roles are reflected in the present.

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Selected solo shows include ‘Savoir Vivre’ at Heidelberger Kunstverein (2023); ‘A thousand times yes’ at Sans titre, Paris (2022); ‘Fancies’ at PAGE (NYC), New York (2022); ‘The Notebook Simulations’ at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Dusseldorf (2021); ‘My refuge, my treasure, without body, without measure’ at ChertLüdde, Berlin (2021); ‘Coeurs Simples’ at Sans titre, Paris (2020); ‘ORLANDO TUSSAUD’ at Philipp Haverkampf, Berlin (2019).
In June 2023, the artist will have a solo presentation at Art Basel in the Statements section with Sans titre, Paris.

Agnes Scherer’s first operetta “Cupid and the Animals”, was awarded the Nigel Greenwood Art Prize in 2015 and performed in, among other places, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne (2017) and TRAMPS in New York (2018). In 2019, her second elaborate work within this format, “The Teacher”, was presented by Kinderhook & Caracas in Berlin, at Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich (2020) and recently in Italy for the festival ART CITY Bologna (2023). Also in 2020, Scherer presented the first part of her third operetta project “The Salty Testament” at 1646 in The Hague. The artist’s narrative installation “The Very Hungry” at the Berlin project space Horse & Pony was granted the Berlin Art Prize (2019).

Agnes Scherer’s works are featured in the permanent collections of important institutions and museums, including FRAC Champagne-Ardenne; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; KOLUMBA Museum, Cologne and Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster in Aachen.