Bettina SEMMER

Bettina Semmer
Born on February 15, 1955 in Düsseldorf

Bettina Semmer is a German visual artist who originally studied German and social sciences. She began her artistic training in Münster in 1975 and continued it in 1976 at the Hochschule für bildende Kunst (HfBK) in Hamburg, in the class of Sigmar Polke, Walter and Neumann, with a guest semester at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the class of Gerhard Richter. In 1992 she obtained her Master of Fine Arts (MA) at Goldsmiths College in London. Semmer is one of the Neue Wilde artists of the 1980s and has appeared in group exhibitions and collaborations with artists such as Rosemarie Trockel and Jutta Koether. Since 2009, she has been involved in art projects, films and a human rights symposium in the Western Sahara for dOCUMENTA (13) via Artifariti. In 2010 she founded “Semmer-Berlin, project space and gallery”. Bettina Semmer has a daughter and lives and works in Berlin.

Solo exhibitions:

1982: Mural. Buch-Handlung Welt, Hamburg
1983: Künstlerhaus Hamburg, Hamburg
1984: Forum-Messe, Zurich
1985: Four pictures. Gallery Ascan Crone, Hamburg
1985: Josh Baer Gallery, New York
1986: Interim Art, Maureen O. Paley, London
1988: Forum Fair, Hamburg
1988: Sevilla, Gallery Bleich-Rossi, Graz
1990: La Maquina Española, Seville
1997: Swiss Bank Corporation, Baden-Baden
2000: Assisted Painting Series, Spacex Gallery, Exeter
2000: UBS, Baden-Baden
2002: Hollow and Empty, The Fish House Gallery, London
2006: Straw to Gold, Gallery 33, Berlin
2007: still., Club von Berlin, Berlin
2008: Portrait painting, Kornhäuschen, Aschaffenburg
2014: A stunning Left Hook, Semmer-Berlin, Berlin
2014: The center is the edge, Dat-Galerie, Berlin
Group exhibitions:

1982: Frauenkunst. (with Johanna Kandl), Fettstraße 7A, Hamburg
1984: Ziehe Vor…. (with Rosemarie Trockel), Kunstwoche Bonn, Bonn
1984: La femme et l’art., Triennale, Le Landeron
1985: Peinture Allemande. (with Jutta Koether and Rosemarie Trockel), La Grande Serre, Rouen
1985: Koether, Semmer, Trockel, La Maquina Española, Seville
1986: Women’s Art, exhibition space Rainer Fichel, Hamburg
1987: Balcony, Künstlerhaus Munich
1987: Diedrich Diederichsen, Forum Stadtpark, Graz
1988: Broken Neon, Forum Stadtpark, Graz
1991: Hamburg Abroad, EVAC, Ipswich
1992: What about having our meanings back, Goldsmiths’ Gallery, London
2000: Kunst Knast, Society of Friends of Young Art, Baden-Baden
2001: Action Audience Joker, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden
2002: Fluent – Painting and Words, Camberwell College, London
2003: Double Bind., Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
2004: Double Bind., Kunsthalle Bremen
2010: Arbitrariness with contrast, exhibition space Transient, Berlin
2012: Parade Pieces, Sacrow Castle
2012: The Africa Triangle, Potsdam
2013: End, Kunstverein Schwerin
2014: Fascination and Facade, Moments of Artistic Intervention
2015: THE 80S., Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
2018/19: The Invention of the New Wild Ones – Painting and Subculture around 1980, Ludwig Forum, Aachen
Publications
1985: Four pictures. (Foreword by Diedrich Diederichsen), Galerie Ascan Crone, Hamburg
1987: Balcony. (with Johanna Hess, Ika Huber, Johanna Kandl, Jutta Koether, Michaela Melián, Rosemarie Trockel), Künstlerhaus Munich
1988: Sevilla, Graz: Galerie Bleich-Rossi
2000: Assisted Painting Series, Exeter: Spacex Gallery
2004: Schlachtensee, Berlin
2006: Portraits 1995-2005., Berlin
2023: Monograph Bettina Semmer, VFMK Verlag für moderne Kunst GmbH, Vienna
Filmography
1979: The Grave of Walter Benjamin, Super 8 on video
1980: Gesagt Getan, 16 mm
1981: River of No Return, 16 mm
2010: The Weeping Girl, digital video
2017: And doesn’t have to be like this… Gerd Semmer’s rebuttals, documentary