Ania Bien (born 1946) is an American photographer. Born in Kraków, Poland, to Polish-Jewish parents, she moved to the United States in 1958, where she studied painting and cultural anthropology. [1] Since 1973 she has lived in Amsterdam. [2]
Works
One of Bien's early projects, Hotel Polen, referred to the Hotel Polen fire (which became "part of Bien's wider theme of destruction" [3]) in Amsterdam, 1977, and established her reputation in Dutch art circles. [2] The collection of photographs illustrated a hotel before World War II, showcasing the relative luxury of middle-class travel in Europe, but objects in the photographs associated with the Holocaust indicate that this was a "doomed" way of life. [4] She fabricated 18 replicas of the hotel's menu stands, and used them to display the photographs. David Levi-Strauss wrote that Bien's art piece is a "polysemous work of absence, in which what happens between images is the most important." [5] The work was displayed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1987 and at the Amsterdams Historisch Museum in 1988. [6]
Some of Bien's work is concerned with Franz Kafka; one of her photographs has her place her hand on a portrait of Kafka's, in response to a note he wrote in 1924 to Dora Diamant, "Place your hand on my forehead for a moment, so I can gain courage." Her 1989 installation Past Perfect asked "what would have happened had [Kafka] not died in 1924, but instead had come as a refugee to America in the late '30s." [7] It gained her international recognition, [2] and was also shown in Jerusalem. [7]
Bien is interested in war, discrimination, and the plight of refugees. [2] She contributed photographs from a centre for asylum seekers in Haarlem to a 1994 book on refugee children in such centers in the Netherlands, Ontheemde kinderen. [8]
Bien has also exhibited at Portfolio Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland, [9] and the Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam. [2] [10]
References
- ^ Levi-Strauss, David (2003). "A Second Gaze". In John Berger (ed.). Between the eyes: essays on photography and politics. Aperture. ISBN 978-1-931788-10-6.
- ^ a b c d e "Home: Ania Bien" (in Dutch). Joods Historisch Museum. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
- ^ Cooper, Emmanuel (April–May 1995). "Rev. of Warworks: Women, Photography and the Iconography of War". Creative Camera. p. 41.
- ^ Osborne, Peter (2000). Travelling light: photography, travel and visual culture. Manchester UP. p. 178. ISBN 978-0-7190-4401-4.
- ^ Baird, Daniel (December 2003). "Between The Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics". Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
- ^ "Hotel Polen//Ania Bien". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
- ^ a b Levine, Angela (11 October 1991). "Photo-based art". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
- ^ Haijtema, Arno (2 January 1995). "Fotografen portretteren jonge vluchtelingen in asielzoekerscentra: Kinderen in een niemandsland". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 12 December 2011.
- ^ Bien, Ania (1992). I-D nationale. Edinburgh, Scotland: Portrait Gallery. ISBN 978-0-9520608-0-2. OCLC 30555690.
- ^ Bien, Ania; Leo Divendal (1993). Home. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Joods Historisch Museum. ISBN 978-90-801562-1-0. OCLC 55990120.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
- 1946 births
- Living people
- 20th-century American women artists
- 21st-century American women artists
- 20th-century Polish women artists
- Photographers from Kraków
- 20th-century Polish Jews
- Jewish American artists
- Photographers from Amsterdam
- Polish emigrants to the United States
- American women photographers
- 21st-century American Jews