Nora Schultz

Nora Schultz (Frankfort, DE, 1975) explores the relations between painting, sculpture, performance, and language. She tends to capture the moment where forms become signs and elements of language. She is interested in translation and in the shifts that occur when external realities and cultural patterns are readapted. She mainly works with industrial materials that she collects in the surroundings of her studio in Berlin (metal of all sorts, rugs, shafts, tubes, ropes). Process and shifting are the bases of her practice which concerns transformation within each context. She remodels found objects into abstract sculpted paintings characterized by precarious balance. Her sculptures often end up taking the shape of printing machines, questioning language and the authority of its grammatical forms in an active process of materialisation.

Nora Schultz had several solo exhibitions including the most recent Ganz grosse Flüsse Laufen unter der Erde /major rivers running underground at Kunsthalle Bremerhaven in Bremen (2024); Finished by Fish at dépendance in Brussels (2023); 3 Months Later at Klosterruine in Berlin(2022); would you say this is the day? at Secession in Vienna (2019); Nora Schultz : River (performance) at Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (2017); a two-persons show at Kadist Art Foundation in Paris (2016-17); BMW Tate Live: Performance Room – Nora Schultz at Tate Modern in London (2014); Parrottree – Building for Bigger Than Real at Renaissance Society in Chicago (2014); Portikus Plant and Portikus Sounds at Portikus in Frankfurt (2012); COMMA 35 at Bloomberg Space in London (2011); Avere luogo at Fondazione Giuliani in Rome( 2010); 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 at Koelnischer Kunstverein in Cologne (2009).

Her work has also been part of numerous group exhibitions such as Skulpturprojekte Stockholm, curated by Marie Karlbreg at Beau Travail in Stockholm (2024); Evan Jose, Nora Schultz, Julian Tromp at Can Contemporary Art Library in Vienna ( 2023); Sound As Sculpture, curated by Thomas Feulmer at The Warehouse in Dallas (2022); Exhibition of the Jahresgaben at Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne (2021); BEINGS at dépendance in Brussels (2020);Vitrine Show at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York (2018); Skulptur Projekte in Münster (2017); Art Price Böttcherstraße at Kunsthalle Bremen Der Kunstverein in Bremen (2016); Secret Surface. Where Meaning Emerge at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin (2016); Bricologie - Le Souris et le Perroquet at Villa Arson in Nice (2015); Chat Jet: Skulptur in Reflexion (Part 2) at Künstlerhaus in Graz (2014); Nature after Nature at Fridericianum in Kassel (2014); Version Control at Arnolfini in Bristol (2013); I knOw yoU at Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin (2013); Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language at MoMA in New York (2012); That’s The Way We Do It at Kunsthaus Bregenz in Bregenz(2011); Non-Solo Show, Non-Group Show at Kunsthalle Zürich in Zürich (2009); Collatéral at Confort Moderne in Poitiers (2009); On Interchange – Zwischenspiele einer Sammlung at Museum Kurhaus Kleve in Germany (2008).

UPCOMING: Nora Schultz's work will be presented in the solo show Bernd Lohaus and Nora Schultz, curated by Olivier Foulon at Etablissement d'en Face in Brussels (2025)