Photography Exhibition Anja Niemi: In Character

Opening May 4th, Galerie XII Los Angeles is pleased to host the West Coast debut exhibition of Norwegian artist Anja Niemi. The exhibition will present both Niemi’s most recent body of work, She Could Have Been A Cowboy, and a unique installation of significant works from her previous series, along with ephemera and props used in her photographs. A concurrent installation of Niemi’s work is on view at the new h Club Los Angeles.

Over the past decade, Niemi’s work has emerged as a distinctive force within the venerable tradition of conceptual self-portraiture, garnering wide international acclaim including a recent solo exhibition at Fotografiska Stockholm and the publication of her first retrospective monograph, In Character, by Thames & Hudson. With her purposeful and elaborate staging, Niemi is photographer, director and lead, inserting herself into the lives of her fictional characters and their stories. Her images offer a multilayered, cinematic exploration of identity, gender roles and, crucially, our relationship with ourselves.

In her latest series, She Could Have Been A Cowboy, being exhibited at Galerie XII and h Club, Niemi continues her investigations of the self. This time she turns the lens to a life lived under the constraints of conformity. Every day her character finds herself trapped in the same pink dress while wishing to be a cowboy, dressed in fringe and leather, riding horses in the Wild West. Through this series of photographs with multiple layers and possible interpretations, Niemi delivers her most political work to date.

Anja Niemi (b. 1976, Norway) is at the ‘breakout moment’ in her career, having had exhibitions in Amsterdam, London, New York, Oslo, Paris, Shanghai and Stockholm. The exhibition at Galerie XII will include work from four of her six series to date including Starlets, Darlene & Me, The Woman Who Never Existed, and her latest series She Could Have Been A Cowboy – giving visitors and collectors a thorough overview of the artist’s work to date. Niemi studied at the London College of Printing and Parsons School of Design in Paris and New York. She lives in Norway.