Petra Spielhagen is a Berlin-based artist who focuses on the interwoven moments between everyday life and the staged. Her output spans three main areas:

Petra Spielhagen is occupied with images of everyday situations in public space, in the landscape and on travels. In particular, she is interested in how sets and scenes for a possible event are emerging in our increasingly staged reality.

She uses photographs and typical resources of the theater to isolate an element from a spatial or temporal context and insert it as a photograph or painted backdrop in another place.

For presentation, she adopts formats and displays of everyday contexts such as advertising. In participatory actions, passers-by are involved. They get a photo of themselves in front of a backdrop or exchange a story for a photo of a place.

Petra lives and works in Berlin, studied free art and stage design at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee. Among other things, she exhibited at the Festival of Regions, Linz, Austria, in the NGBK, Berlin; at the DA, Kunsthaus Kloster Gravenhorst, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in Marseille, France, at the Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin. 

She has received the following prizes and grants, among others: research grant, global grant from the Berlin Senate for Rotterdam, Otte 1 künstlerhaus Eckernförde, Schöppingen Artists’ Village Foundation, Goldrausch female artists’ project, Berlin; Project grant, DA, Kunsthaus Kloster Gravenhorst; Artist Residency, Cannes, France; Hotel Neustadt, Festival, Halle-Neustadt, project funding from the Senate for Science, Research and Culture, Berlin; First prize in the art competition of the Max Planck Society/realization of the Wandering Light Field for the Fritz Haber Institute, Berlin.

Contact

Credits
Website design: Null Zero
Development: Virgile Janssen

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The copyright lies with Petra Spielhagen/VG Bildkunst Bonn and the individual authors and photographers. Despite careful content control, the site owner assumes no liability for the content of external links. The operators of the linked pages are solely responsible for their content.

Rauchzeichen

(Smoke signal)
Dessau 2017, Berlin 2019.
Multi-part photoseries, fine art pigment-prints on archival paper, installation for display case,
artists book, tiny people igurines, books, copy.
Variable sizes, backdrop 280×330cm.

A picturial backdrop is set up and photographed at various locations in the city of Dessau. The painting’s motif — a smoking volcano — refers to the Dessau-Wörlitzer Gartenreich and represents a staffage building on a reduced scale.

On Insel-Stein there is an artificial replica of Vesuvius, that was visited by Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz von Anhalt-Dessau on his study trips to Naples. He had man-made Stein Island as part of his picture program for the landscape park in the years 1788-1794.

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Park Werder Anlagen, in the back: German Environment Agency, Dessau-Roßlau, October 2017

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Schillerpark - Schillerstraße, Dessau-Roßlau, Oktober 2017

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Raguhner Straße, Dessau-Roßlau, September 2017

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Triftweg, Dessau-Roßlau, September 2017

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Artist book, Berlin 2019

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Installation, display case version, Foyer Palais Dietrich, Anhaltische Landesbücherei, Dessau-Roßlau 2018

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Display case version, Foyer Palais Dietrich, Anhaltische Landesbücherei, Dessau-Roßlau 2018

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Display case version, Foyer Palais Dietrich, Anhaltische Landesbücherei, Dessau-Roßlau 2018