Maria Brunner (b. 1962, Lienz, Austria; lives and works in Berlin)

In KATHEDRaLe (2020), Maria Brunner presents large-format photographs of the Cologne Cathedral, printed on transparent PVC lamella curtains. Taken from a room in the Dom Hotel overlooking the cathedral, the images capture shifting views through a curtain—sometimes open, closed, or wind-blown—highlighting transience and spatial ambiguity. Brunner transforms these original analog photos into a conceptual installation that contrasts the heaviness of Gothic architecture with the lightness and fluidity of industrial curtains. The works immerse viewers in a perspective akin to a hotel guest. Transparency, layering, and shifting perceptions dissolve boundaries between interior and exterior space.
Referencing her earlier conceptual photography and painting practice, Brunner explores how surface becomes space and vice versa, using materiality, pictorial planes, and environmental context to challenge fixed spatial definitions. These works stem from her earlier Domhotel series (1997), inspired by the film Not Reconciled, itself based on Heinrich Böll’s 1959 socio-critical novel Billiards at Half Past Nine.

Maria Brunner works across painting and installation, exploring materiality, perception, and abstraction in a practice that combines formal experimentation with conceptual rigor.

Select institutional solo exhibitions include Kunstverein Offenburg (2012); Kunst Forum Rottweil (2010); and Kunstverein Heilbronn (2008). Select group exhibitions include Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2014); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2013); Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck (2010); and Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (2004). Her works are held in collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Sammlung Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt; and Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck, among others.

Galerie Gisela Capitain was founded in 1986 in Cologne. The gallery developed an ongoing vibrant program with international artists from various disciplines. For soon over 40 years, the gallery’s artistic agenda has remained focused on, though not limited to, European and American Contemporary Art from the 1980s until now. In October 2008 Gisela Capitain has opened a new space in a 1960s glass pavilion in Berlin in collaboration with Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, to continue and extend the gallery‘s program of exhibitions and projects. In 2022 Galerie Gisela Capitain launched „Zweigstelle Capitain“, a temporary exhibition space. The first exhibitions took place in Rome and since 2023 the Zweigstelle is located in Naples, Italy.