Mathilde ter Heijne

Some recent solo exhibitions
Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg 2010, 'Left Over'
Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, 2009, 'Long Live Matriarchy'
Galerie Arndt&Partner, Berlin 2009, 'Red and Black, White and Silver'
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, 2007
Berlinische Galerie, 2006, 'Woman to go'

Some recent group exhibitions
Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, 2009, 'Rebelle: Kunst en feminisme 1969-2009'
Museum of contemporary Art, Belgrade 2008, 'Walls in the street'
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich 2008, 'Female Trouble. Die Kamera als Speigel und Bühne weiblicher Inszenierung'

Selected publications
Mathilde ter Heijne, Mathilde ter Heijne: if it's me, it's not me, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz 2008
Ellen Seifermann, Jörg Heiser, Romantic conceptualism, Bielefeld: Kerber 2007
Jörg Heiser, Cay Rabinowitz, Mathilde ter Heijne: indifference to the truth, Amsterdam: Artimo Foundation 2000

Selected public and corporate collections
NBK, Berlin, DE • Deutsche Bank Collection, DE • Sammlung Goetz, Munich, DE • Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, NL • Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, NL • Kunstcollectie Stichting Océ Kunstbezit, NL • Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, CH • Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, US

Mathilde ter Heijne's work covers a wide range of disciplines. Since 1999 she has mainly been interested in the theme of sacrifice within power relationships in regard to religion, gender and political backgrounds. Her installations, performances, films and video works generally draw on existing source materials such as films, novels, photographs, psychotherapy sessions or, for instance, religious rituals. This is also the case for her more recent work that researches possible alternatives to Patriarchal culturestructures, for which theoretical, archaeological and ethnographic material forms the foundation. Exploring the role of women in shaping cultural identity and in the transfer of knowledge within societies with a matriarchal structure, the starting point of  Ter Heijne's research was the archaeological assumption that the cultures of the Neolithic period, in contrast to the religions codified on alphabetic scripts – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – did not believe in a male creator; instead they worshipped an array of female goddesses. It is this correlation between religion, script or symbol systems and gender roles that the artist is particularly interested in.

Mathilde ter Heijne was resident artist at the Rijksakademie in 1993-1994.
She won the Mama Cash Kunstprijs (NL) in 2001 and the Saar-Frengas-Förderpreis Junge Kunst (DE) in 2002.