Mona Kuhn


Mona Kuhn is a contemporary photographer best known for her large-scale photographs of the human form and essence. An underying current in Kuhn's work is her reflection on our longing for spiritual connection and solidarity. As a result, her approach is unusual in that she develops close relationships with her subjects, resulting in images of remarkable intimacy. Kuhn's work shows the human body in its natural state while simultaneously re-interpreting the nude as a contemporary canon of art. Her work often references classical themes, has been exhibited internationally, and is held in several collections including the J. Paul Getty Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Born in São Paulo, Brazil to parents of German ancestry, Mona Kuhn lives and works in Los Angeles, United States.

Early life

Mona Kuhn began taking photographs at age 12, when her parents gave her a Kodak camera for her birthday. Kuhn has attributed her interest to her early formative years:
“I didn’t grow up with cousins and I didn’t grow up with grandparents … so I think I always had, since I was a child, a slight inner need to bond or to create a small family. I think that the people that I photograph, if I look at all my series, were all people that could have been my extended family. That’s how I treat them. And that’s the real little seed that maybe comes from infancy."
She moved to the United States in 1992 to attend Ohio State University and then furthered her studies at the San Francisco Art Institute. She has listed her early influences as artists Lucian Freud, Bill Viola, and Mário Cravo Neto.

Art career

Kuhn chose the nude as the focus of her work because it represents a timeless canon and she was interested in the idea of the body as residence. Her early work focused on details of the body in black and white; she is quoted as saying:
"I was not yet comfortable photographing the full figure. As I became more comfortable and as I stepped back with the camera and started seeing more of the environment, I realized right away that color was very important … that color was all around and balancing color became very important for me, and it also became a source of inspiration. Every new series starts with me imagining a palette; and then I grow from there."
She describes her visual vocabulary as figurative, however recent works have begun explorations with abstraction. “I wanted to escape the body and photograph the human presence coming in and out of evidence, at times overexposed, at times hidden in shadows, like a desert mirage, a solitary figure who could have been the very first or last.”
Kuhn's first monograph titled Photographs was published by Steidl in 2004. Photographs was followed by Evidence in 2007, which was accompanied with a short story by Frederic Tuten. Her next project, released in 2010, was a return to her homeland of Brazil, with a series titled Native and an accompanying monograph of the same name published by Steidl. In 2011, Kuhn released Bordeaux Series, also with a monograph published by Steidl, which is a collection of traditional portraits and landscapes. Her work has been described as "intimate and sensuous," "dreamlike" and "classical" in composition.
In 2018, Kuhn released two monographs, including She Disappeared into Complete Silence and Bushes & Succulents. In a 2018 interview with Kuhn, Betsy Morales interpreted the new work for Museé Magazine, "Pastel succulents and serene bodies are paired together to cast a hypnotic spell on the viewer that ultimately compliment female essence." In the same year, Kuhn presented her first immersive installation piece, "Experimental", at The Fruit in Durham, North Carolina. Writer Julie M. Hamilton explains "In Experimental, Kuhn employs video projections, vinyl installation, and other mixed media to build her photos into an environment in which spectators can contemplate and deconstruct notions of the self. In this sense, the audience is the exhibit’s subject, performing the work as a participant."

Other professional activities

In addition to fine art photography, Kuhn has an extensive career with fashion and editorial work. She shot Bottega Veneta's resort 2012 campaign and has collaborated with Chanel and Dior. She has photographed for numerous publications, including Numéro, Le Monde, Harper's Bazaar, and W. Her portrait subjects include Tom Hiddleston, Sarah Paulson and Liev Schrieber.
Kuhn has been invited to curate exhibitions, most recently curating a show for The Billboard Creative, which placed works by emerging and established artists on billboards across Los Angeles. She curated Under My Skin at Flowers Gallery in New York City in 2013 and juried Clothed at The Center for Fine Art Photography, also in 2013.
Since 1998, she has been an independent scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

Selected Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions:
Group Exhibitions: