Catherine Leutenegger

Catherine Leutenegger (b. 1983) is a visual artist based in Switzerland.

BA and MA in Visual Communication / Photography with First Class Honours at University of Art and Design / ECAL. Her first monographical book titled Hors-champ revealing photographers' workspaces, was published by Infolio through the Manor Cultural Award 2006 which includes a generous cash prize and an exhibition at the Musée de l'Elysée curated by William A. Ewing and Nathalie Herschdorfer.

The Manor Award established in 1982 by Philippe Nordmann represents one of the most prestigious acknowledgements of artistic merit and one of the most significant promotional instrument within the contemporary Swiss art scene. Beside she is the recipient of several major fellowships including two Swiss Federal Design Grants (2006 and 2008); the Raymond Weil International Photography Prize (2008) and the BCV Encouragement Prize (2006). In 2007, she took part of an artist residency program in New York and started her project named Kodak City in Rochester. Her second monography was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2014 and looks at the demise of the once booming Kodak empire.

Throughout her recent body of work titled New Artificiality (2015-), Catherine Leutenegger investigates the current potential and limits of 3D printing technology in numerous business sectors. Her analytical work of great precision and great beauty combines humor and love of a changing art. She is an archeologist of what slowly disappears or has not even begun to disappear but already bears witness to her own finiteness.

Catherine Leutenegger

With the series "New Artificiality", started in 2015, Catherine Leutenegger explores the potential that 3D printing techniques have introduced in everyday life with the turn of the century. As such digital technologies become increasingly more advanced, precise, and widespread, the photographer focuses her attention on those objects that present anomalies, either as a result of a malfunction of the machine or a problem with the software code.

These three-dimensional glitches question the actual capabilities of the apparatus itself and its accuracy in reproducing reality with varying levels of verisimilitude. Ultimately, these images may be seen as a broader allusion to photography itself, its much debated reality-effect and indexicality, and its dissemination thanks to the democratization and popularization of digital technologies.