Sabine Moritz

Sabine Moritz’s work explores the dynamics of how memory is constituted and the way in which it is subject to a continual process of deformation and reformation. Described by Hans Ulrich Obrist in 2013 as ‘memories made visual – the fleeting impulses of the past rendered concrete in art’, Moritz’s paintings, by turns abstract and figurative, activate an awareness of time. They are records of specific, highly personal experiences that open out onto the general horizon of a collective history, from the artist’s childhood in the East German town of Jena, to the abstract notions of transience, decay and seriality. Moritz’s work may be interpreted, above all, as a protest against forgetting, while also stating in no uncertain terms the inherent fragility, mutability and immateriality of memory. 

Moritz started her studies at Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach (from 1989 to 1991) and completed her studies at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (graduated 1994). Moritz has been widely exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Düsseldorf, Brussels, Paris and London. Selected solo exhibitions of Moritz’s work include: August, Gagosian, Rome, Italy (2023); Heart of Drought | Under the Skin, Pilar Corrias, London, UK (2023); Lobeda oder die Rekonstruktion einer Welt, Lyonel-Feininger-Galerie, Quedlinburg (2022); Mercy, Pilar Corrias, London (2021); Journal Entries, HENI Leviathan, London (2020); Sterne und Granit, Kunsthalle, Rostock (2019); Neuland, Kunstverein Bremerhaven (2017); Harvest, Pilar Corrias, London (2015); Sabine Moritz, Von der Heydt-Kunsthalle, Wuppertal (2014); Concrete and Dust, Foundation de 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg (2013); Lobeda, Kunsthaus sans titre, Potsdam (2011). Selected group exhibitions include: Age of Terror: Art Since 9/11, Imperial War Museum, London (2017); Faber-Castell International Drawing Award 2012, Neues Museum – Staatl. Museum für Kunst und Design, Nuremberg (2012); and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, Cultuurcentrum Mechelen, Mechelen (2010).

Moritz's work is included in prominent collections including the Aïshti Foundation, Jal El Dib; LVMH, Paris and Tate Modern, London.