Avalon

The photographer Stephanie Kloss takes up a search for traces within a closed (fantasy) space. In the course of this search, she investigates readable clichés of power relations and society at “Avalon”, a BDSM studio, and creates a psychogram of the place and its imagined history. “Avalon”, the location where the photographs were made, is about a group which prefers in the sexual realm a particular form of power, or loss of power, and creates suitable spaces for this. To regard this setting in its profanity, but not watch the action, was the challenge her work confronts. Stephanie Kloss, born in Karlsruhe, lives and works as a visual artist in Berlin. She studied architecture at the Berlin Technische Universität (diploma), and media art at Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe under Marie-Jo Lafontaine and Günther Förg, as well as photography under Thomas Struth and Candida Höfer. Stephanie Kloss’s photographic works deal with sociological, political, and spatial phenomena. Here, in her more recent works, the subject of power plays a central part. She is represented in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In addition to to her artistic work, she teaches extracurricular studies at Universität der Künste Berlin (UDK) and Summer University, curates shows such as “Erotica” or “Pissing in a River. Again!” (Kunstraum Kreuzberg), and writes texts for various art magazines.