Does knowledge lead to understanding? The art of Alexandra Hunts disturbs the lines between legitimate and illegitimate forms of knowledge. In her artistic practice, she makes use of different media such as photography, sculpture, and installation art. Through these means, her research primarily engages with notions of materiality, information, and the subsequent possibilities for the mastering of skills. Moreover, she places these concepts in the context of art in relation to knowledge production and questions what it means to be an artist. Central to her artistic practice is the connection between physical processes and theoretical research. She investigates issues of craftsmanship, science and tradition, arranged in a timeline with prehistoric times, the industrial revolution, and the digital age as benchmarks.
Or, as Alexandra elaborates: ‘Each of my projects is very investigative, starting with a long and entangled research into a topic. This research often leads to a complex discord of social, historical, and political narratives. I aim to dig into a subject’s history, to explore the complexity of the unknown, to collect different types of knowledge outside the frame. By going through the entire process of creating an artwork, I experience the role, abilities, capacities, as well as the limitations of being an artist. The physical craft becomes a bridge. It connects the reality of the here and now to the infinity of the mind and idea.’
• Recent exhibitions at Galerie Bart: The Great Photography Special 2020 • Art Rotterdam 2019 • Matter of Knowledge 2017.
CV
Alexandra Hunts, born in 1990, Lviv, Ukraine, currently works and lives in Amsterdam. Alexandra has graduated in 2012 from The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, before getting her MFA degree at the Malmö Art Academy in Sweden in 2018. Moreover, in 2019 she completed the Arts/Science academy honours program, at KNAW, Amsterdam.
Alexandra has been exhibiting since 2012 solo and in groups in The Netherlands and abroad, both in galleries and museums. Institutions that have exhibited her work include the Lviv Art Palace, Museum Henriette Polak, the Cobra Museum, LUMC Galerie Leiden, LAM Lisse, the Norton Museum of Art in the USA. Moreover, she has frequently participated in fairs, such as Art Rotterdam, Unseen, Contemporary Art Ruhr, PAN, and the Brighton Photo Biennial.
In 2016 Alexandra was selected as FOAM Talent, in 2018 she received the Hermina van Bers Award and was nominated for the Somfy Photography Award in the same year. Alexandra received grants from both the Mondriaan Fund and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds among others, and has stayed as artist in residence at Fabrikken in Copenhagen, the Muzychi Expanded History Project in Kiev, Ukraine and Art Hub Copenhagen, in Denmark.
Her work is included in the collections of the NN Group, the LUMC, ING, Rabobank, Bankgiro Loterij, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Ernst & Young, het Norton Museum of Art, LAM Lisse and several private collections. The collaboration between Galerie Bart and Alexandra Hunts dates all the way back to 2012 and has resulted in multiple fair participations and solo and group exhibitions in the gallery.
Artworks
Press
2021 •
05.08 Het Parool Een zomers dubbelspel tussen ratio en emotie, by Edo Dijksterhuis.
2020 •
Diptych in love Alexandra Hunts, does knowledge lead to understanding? Podcast interview of Alexandra Hunts by Ola Lanko.
2019 •
12.02 Trendbeheer Art Rotterdam Prospects & Concepts by Jeroen Bosch.
10.02 Artist Talk Magazine Art Rotterdam 2019 at the Van Nelle Fabriek by Antonia Dalivalle.
2018 •
01.08 KHM year book 1.7 Milliseconds Slower around the Axis by Alexandra Hunts.
09.11 PALETTEN #312-313 editorial.
01.06 IMA “It” editorial.
2018 Dutch Heights Hermine van Bers Beeldende Kunstprijs 2018 Alexandra Hunts, editorial.
2017 •
08.12 Wallstreet International Magazine Alexandra Hunts, editorial.
10.11 Tique Six Questions: Alexandra Hunts, editorial.
25.11 SeeAllThis Matter of Knowledge | Alexandra Hunts, editorial.
2016 •
05.07 FOAM Foam Talent 2016, editorial.
11.02 Mister Motley Art Rotterdam Prospects & Concepts by Janneke van Gelder.
2014 •
18.09 NRC Deze foto’s zag je nooit eerder by Marloe van der Schrier.
21.08 YET magazine Alexandra Hunts – fossil, editorial.
20.08 ING Finalists New Talent Photography Award, editorial.
2013 •
10.03 PRISM Photo Magazine #10, editorial.
