katja novitskova

11 march until 1 october 2023

The work of Katja Novitskova (Tallinn, 1984) revolves around the relationship between ecology and technology, around the meaning of images in relation to biology and human evolution. She sees the human penchant for (making) images as an expression of the relentless expansionism of the human species. The fascination with appropriating whatever landscape, natural environment, or entity by visualising it and thereby mapping it underlies Novitskova's work.

The exhibition opened on 11 March 2023, with a festive opening on Saturday 15 April.

art talk with katja novitskova

interview by curator judith spijksma (select saturday 15 april)

opening saturday 15 april

festive programme, for everyone

Today, more than ever, there exists an unprecedented abundance of raw data, encapsulated and disseminated through media artefacts. It is precisely these digital chronicles that are the source of Katja Novitskova’s inspiration. Everything we think we know from scientific research is potentially of interest to Novitskova. The source of this knowledge, such as scientific papers and online databases, forms her artistic material.

wildlife cameras
Novitskova's Earthware series is included in the exhibition. Earthware is based on databases of large numbers of images captured by wildlife cameras for research purposes. Placed in the middle of nature, deep in forests or sometimes even in oceans, these cameras produce massive amounts of photo sequences. Before an algorithm can process the bulk of the photos, it has to learn pattern recognition from humans, who index the initial images.
Novitskova dove into these databases and helped with indexing. She also discovered beautiful examples among the automated images, although that isn’t the primary function of wildlife cameras. She transferred these images to epoxy clay, making a reference to clay tablets and other prehistoric image carriers.

Katja Novitskova, Earthware, 2022, Photographer def-image, Courtesy the artist and Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler

katja novitskova
Katja Novitskova lives and works in Amsterdam. In 2011, she published her first book Post Internet Survival Guide 2010. In 2017, she represented Estonia in the 57th Venice Biennial.
Her work has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions, including at MoMa in New York (2015), The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki (2017), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018, solo), The Public Art Fund, New York (2017, solo) Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (2019), Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen (2021, solo) and the Biennials of Belgrade (2021), Lyon (2015) and Berlin (2016).
Novitskova's work is also included in several public and private collections, including Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Boros Collection, Berlin; CC Foundation, Shanghai; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Rubell Family Collection, Miami and many others.

In 2017, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid acknowledged Novitskova by presenting her with the Young Cultural Figure Award.

Katja Novitskova, foto door Lutz Leitmann