About the Artist
2024
Ph.D. in German Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA; Dissertation: Painting and Writing with the Camera: The Artistic Processes of Gerhard Richter and W. G. Sebald
2015
M.A. in Visual and Critical Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA; Master’s thesis: The Poetics of Destruction: A Compendium of Ruins and Ruin Flowers
2013
M.F.A. in Studio Art, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, USA
2010
B.F.A. in Studio Art, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA
2001-6
Fashion photographer; represented by Shotview Photographers Management (Vienna) from 2003 until 2006: see www.archive.tinatahir.com
2001
Cert. in Professional Photographic Practice, London College of Communication (then: London College of Printing), London, UK
Tina Tahir (b. 1973, Ulm) lives and works in Berlin. After training in photography at the London College of Printing, she spent several years in fashion, producing editorials and advertising campaigns for international clients and creating a series of album artworks for the violin virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter. In 2006, Tahir turned her practice toward fine art. She later studied painting and visual studies in Chicago and expanded this artistic inquiry through doctoral research in German Studies at the University of Michigan, where she examined multilayered memory images in selected paintings by Gerhard Richter and in W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. Tahir’s practice merges analog and digital processes, working between painting, drawing, and print aesthetics. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including in Berlin, Athens, Chicago, Dubai, and Toronto.
Artist Statement
My work questions ideas of representation, perception, and transience. I often explore these phenomena through the projection of semblance and the way images betray their appearance: what at first seems like a pearl necklace reveals itself as a chain of artillery—bombs, tanks, and hand grenades. Loose carpets made of soil, pigment, or glitter are carried across the room beneath the audience’s footsteps, unraveling and dissolving as they move. Lavishly adorned Baroque floral frames with empty picture planes yield to horror vacui as foliage spills inward, turning the frame itself into the image. In the halftone images, gray tones appear only as illusions formed in the viewer’s eye, emerging from patterns of black dots.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025
ABOUT, GEDOK Künstlerinnenforum, Karlsruhe, DE
2024
Ebony & Ivory, artnow gallery, Berlin, DE
2022
Strich um Strich. Zeichnen 2, GalerieEtage, Museum Reinickendorf, Berlin, DE
Neue Kunstwerke der Graphothek Berlin, Berlin, DE
2021
Schwarzweiß – Weißschwarz, BEGE Galerien, Ulm, DE
Fressen, Verein Berliner Künstler, Berlin, DE
2020
Begegnungen, Rathaus-Galerie Reinickendorf, Berlin, DE
2018
Reminiscence, Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto, CA
2017
Flatfiles, Goldfinch Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
Crystal Carpet, Armani Hotel, Burj Khalifa, Dubai, UAE
The Conditions of Production, Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, Athens, GR
Climbing Vines on a Random Wall, Hangar Artistic Research Center, Lisbon, PT
2016
The Particular Poetics of Things, Goldfinch Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
Institutional Garbage, Sector 2337, Chicago, IL, USA
Arte Laguna Prize, Arsenale, Finalist (Sculpture), Venice, IT
New Materiality, The Project Space, The Banff Centre, Banff, CA
2015
Aqua Art Miami, ArtSlant Prize 2015, 2nd Prize, Miami, FL, USA
Front & Center, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, USA
ACERBUNUNDRUM, Ballroom Projects, Chicago, IL, USA
Ground Floor, Jackman Goldwasser Catwalk Gallery (HPAC), Chicago, IL, USA
DOUBLE CHERRY, Threewalls, Chicago, IL, USA
How To Disappear, Paul Watkins Gallery, Winona, MN, USA
2013
12 Theses, Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL, USA
Erasure, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, WI, USA
Leftovers, University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA
A Strange House in My Voice, Gallery 400, Chicago, IL, USA
2010
Shadows, SCA Contemporary Art & Artlab, Albuquerque, NM, USA
2007
Musen—Modelle—Malerlegenden—von Renoir bis Warhol, Rechberghausen, DE
2006
Ménage à deux, Elvira Bach und Tina Tahir, Kunstkabinett, Regensburg, DE
2004
Floral, Galerie Viaux, Hamburg, DE
Europäische Kunst in der SüdWest Kurve, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, DE
Solo exhibitions
2024
Von der Lust an Verwandlung, BEGE Galerien Ulm, DE
2017
Editions – Selected Works, Galerie am Dom, Wetzlar, DE
2016
Botany of Desire, Gallery 2, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, USA
2014
Tapestries, BEGE Galerien. Ulm, DE
2012
Galerie Domberger, Editionen Tina Tahir. Filderstadt, DE
2010
Entfernung- Distance/Erasure, UNM John Sommers Gallery. Albuquerque, NM, USA
2005
Drawn to Photography, BEGE Galerien Ulm, DE
2003
Fotografie-Illustration, BEGE Galerien Ulm, DE
Books
2024
Painting and Writing with the Camera: The Artistic Processes of Gerhard Richter and W. G. Sebald (PhD Dissertation)
2015
The Poetics of Destruction (MA Thesis)
39 Future Memories
2014
Footnotes on a Conscious Act of Erasure
Grants & Fellowships
2024
Rackham Humanities Research Fellowship, University of Michigan
2022
FU Sturm Fellowship, FU Berlin / University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
2015
Field Trip/Field Notes/Field Guide, Intercollegiate, Transdisciplinary Consortium (U of C, UIC, SAIC)
George H. Roeder Fellowship, Visual and Critical Studies, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
City of Chicago’s DCASE, Individual Artists Program (IAP)
Creative Projects Grant Award, Illinois Arts Council, Chicago
Hyde Park Art Center Program Fellowship, Chicago
2014
Foundation for Contemporary Arts New York, emergency grant, New York