Céline Manz

Céline Manz (*1981, Switzerland, she/ her) is a research-based artist with a multidisciplinary queer feminist practice. Her aim is to create multilayered narratives that (re-)evaluate researched subject matters in a contemporary context. The work in and with archives is a key factor to this practice, and her critical reflections on established systems of representation are regularly intertwined with a panoply of academic disciplines, such as sociology, psychoanalysis, art history, culture studies or literature.

Approaching projects in long-term projects that are sectioned into case studies allows her to interlace theoretical and archive-based research with experiment-driven studio practice. Manz's most recent work cycle 'The Haunting' explores the role of architectural spaces as lived-in archives, and how such spaces can be activated as narrative devices.

Education:

Manz first started the preparatory course of art school at the age of 16 in 1997. After moving into her own apartment a year later she ran through a number of odd jobs before starting education as a bookseller in a local Comic shop from 2003 - 2006. In the following years, she worked as a self-taught photographer until going back to school full-time from 2007 to 2008 to get the necessary diploma needed to attend university. In 2009 she started a formal education as a photographer in Vevey, Switzerland, which was followed by a BA at the Photography Department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 2011 - 2013. Her diploma work was nominated for several art prizes in the Netherlands and in Switzerland. A grant from the Amsterdam Funds for the Arts allowed her to run the artist-run project space STUDIO 47 in Amsterdam from 2014 to 2016, which she continues to run as an online platform with its own imprint - STUDIO 47 PRESS - to this day.

From 2017 - 2019 Manz did a Master in Fine Arts in Contemporary Art Practice - Critical Practice at the Royal College of Art in London. Her diploma work won the StudioMakers Prize by Outset, which included a one-year studio grant in London. Since 2020 Manz lives and works in Basel, Switzerland. Her work is regularly supported by art grants and is featured in several private and public collections such as the collection of Basler Kunstverein, CH,  the Art Commission of Basel-Landschaft, CH, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague, NL, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, NL, and more.

Selected Shows and commissions include:

2022 We are many here, Kunsthalle Basel, CH

2021 ‘Living Abstraction • Plates.', Museum of Art Basel, CH

2021 Picturial Spaces. Kunsthaus Baselland, CH

2021 Stitches: scènes, corps, décors, curated by Collectif détente,Le Commun, Geneva, CH

2020 Solo Show ‘9 espaces distincts’ Kunsthaus Langenthal, CH

2020 Regionale 21, Kunsthaus Baselland, CH

2020 ‘Annemarie von Matt -Je ne m’ennuie pas, on m’ennuie’, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, FR

2020 Unfair, Westergas, Amsterdam, NL

2020 ‘Durst’ Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Vienna, AT

2019 Outset Studio Makers Prize, Tiffany‘s & Co., Covent Garden, London, UK

2018 The London Open 2018, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK

2018 ‘Copy this’, Kunstinstitut Melly (formerly Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art), Rotterdam, NL

2016 Solo Show Rythme sans fin, N° 1 – 1832, De Appel, Amsterdam, NL

2014 Gazing Upon My Reflection: Céline Manz, Kyle Tryhorn and Johanna Kotlaris, Schwarzwaldallee, Basel, CH

2014 TRAINS: Céline Manz & Jacqueline de Jong. De Kring, Amsterdam, NL

2014 Hungry for Love: The Exhibition: Céline Manz & Xavier Fernandez Fuentes, WoW Amsterdam, NL

2014 1st – Solo Show, Island, Hamburg, DE

Date of residency: 1. 6. 2023–31. 8. 2023

http://www.celinemanz.com/