+ About the work

The Passage is from Karen Knorr’s iconic series Fables (2004-2008). In it, the artist combines analogue and digital photography, playfully reconfiguring tales (from Ovid, Aesop, La Fontaine etc.) and merging them with popular culture through setting them in museums such as the Carnavalet Museum in Paris. The Passage was created upstairs at Villa Savoye – Le Corbusier’s celebrated 1931 villa, situated on the outskirts of Paris. The free-flowing modernist spaces are interrupted by two little birds, who stir the air and bring back to life past spirits of the place: echoes of freedom, and a baroque joie de vivre that enrich and slightly destabilise the modernist aesthetics of Le Corbusier.

+ About the artist

Karen Knorr is one of the most significant photographic artists working today. During her 40 year career, her seminal work has been honoured by numerous exhibitions worldwide, including Tate Britain (2015); Pompidou (2009); Houston Museum of Fine Arts (2015); SCO Shanghai, China (2018); Getty Museum (2019); National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (2020); Barbican (2020)

Works by Karen Knorr are featured in some of the most important art collections in the world including Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum of Arts and Photography, Bangalore; Pompidou, Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; SCOP, Shanghai; Houston Museum of Fine Arts; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Over eight monographs celebrating her work have been published, including India Song (Skira); Marks of Distinction (Thames and Hudson) and Questions (After Brecht) (GOST, forthcoming). Represented by galleries around the world, Knorr is Professor of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts. In 2018 she was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society. Knorr is an activist for diversity and women’s rights and co-founder (with artist Anna Fox) of Fast Forward Women in Photography.