Katinka Bock

Katinka Bock, born in 1976 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is a German sculptor and visual artist living between Paris and Berlin.

Katinka Bock has a predilection for modest, natural materials such as terracotta, wood, plaster, ceramics, leather, and fabric. With a kind of delicate simplicity, she often combines these materials with found objects. For the artist, the materials used have a meaning that goes beyond their materiality. They are provocative because of the way they evoke deep and immediate emotions that precede conceptualization. In her practice, Bock invests in exhibition spaces and designs her works to resonate with them. At the same time, she creates a mental space in her work to subtly invite the viewer to reflect.

Katinka Bock has been selected for artist residencies in France, the United States, Germany, and Italy at the Villa Medici, Rome in 2012-2013. In 2012, she won the prestigious Ricard Foundation Prize, France. In 2015, she received the visual arts grant from the Botin Foundation, Spain. She was nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize, France, and won the 1% Art Market Production Prize, France.

Since 2003, she has participated in a number of group exhibitions and has had numerous solo exhibitions internationally, including recently: Der Sonnenstich, Fondation Pernod Ricard, Paris, 2023; Some and Any, Feavering, Cahn Kunstraum, Basel, Switzerland, 2022; Common People, La Loge, Brussels, Belgium, 2022; Logbook, Artium Museum, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, 2021.

Her work is represented by the Jocelyn Wolff Gallery (Paris).

For this first jewelry sculpture, entitled “Kerasi” (Greek for cherry), in collaboration with the MiniMasterpiece Gallery, Katinka Bock has combined bronze cherry pits with long rigid silver stems, creating an encounter between the organic and the inorganic. “Kerasi” is worn around the neck, resting on the nape of the neck, that pivotal part of the body that connects the head to the rest of the body, and which is often evoked in the artist's work. The neck is both vulnerable and grounding. The artist often places cherry pits in her sculptures and installations, which she calls Toxic. They evoke both pleasure and poisoning. The remedy and the venom. The toxicity in our consumption, in our environment, in our relationships with others.
Katinka Bock has been collaborating with the MiniMasterpiece Gallery since 2019.