BIOGRAPHY
Born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1952, Angela Grauerholz has lived and worked in Montreal since 1976. A graduate of the Kunstschule Alsterdamm, Hamburg, in graphic design, she also studied literature and linguistics at the University of Hamburg and holds a Master's degree in Fine Arts (photography) from Concordia University, Montreal. In 1980, she was a co-founder of ARTEXTE centre d'information en art contemporain, where she worked until 1986. Simultaneously, until the late 1980s, she was very active as a graphic designer specializing in magazine, catalogue and book design. Since 1988, she has been teaching at the École de design, Université du Québec à Montréal, where she recently was the director of the Centre de Design (2008 - 2012). Having influenced and taught many generations of graphic designers in Quebec, she has received numerous awards for her design work, such as the Award of Excellence (Best of Best) from the American Federation of Arts, New York, for the book Lisette Model, published by the National Gallery of Canada in 1990, and has worked for many distinguished artists and art institutions across Canada.
Grauerholz's photographic work has been exhibited and collected nationally and internationally. She has participated in numerous international events of distinction, including the Biennale of Sydney, Australia (1990), documenta IX, Kassel, Germany (1992), and the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, USA (1995). Solo exhibitions of her work have been organized by the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster (1991), the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1993), the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, in 1995, a travelling exhibition (Hanover, Zug/Zürich 1995 - 96). Her work Sententia I - LXII was shown at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, in 1999, at The Power Plant, Toronto, and at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago (1999 - 2000). Her Privation series of photographs was exhibited as part of the Biennale de Montréal (2002) and presented the same year at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. In 2003, a first version of the Reading Room for the Working Artist and Privation were shown at the Blaffer Gallery, The Art Museum of the University of Houston. Final versions of the Reading Room for the Working Artist were shown in 2006 at VOX, Contemporary Image Centre, Montreal, in 2007 at The Ottawa Art Gallery in the exhibition Re-reading, and in 2008 in Memory Palace at the Vancouver Public Library. VOX produced and launched her web work www.atworkandplay.ca in 2009. In 2010, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography organized a retrospective view of her work at the National Gallery of Canada which was subsequently shown at the University of Toronto Art Center in 2011.
In 2006, Grauerholz was awarded Quebec's Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas for her accomplishments in the arts. She continues to photograph, work on archive projects and film collaborations, such as her recent film collage entitled Appassionata, with Montrealer Réjean Myette and New York composer Melissa Grey. She is represented by Art 45 in Montréal, Gallery Olga Korper in Toronto, Galerie Thomas Schulte in Berlin and Galerie Françoise Paviot in Paris.