Carl Maria Kemper is a conceptual artist living and working in Hamburg. He studied at the msa I münster school of architecture (Master of Arts in Architecture) and worked in this field before joining various expeditions of the artists Julian Charrière and Johannes Förster to polar regions of the earth.
Influenced by contextual art and by ecological, political, and social concerns, Kemper developed a way to translate his insights into artistic work. Experiences in fragile ecosystems affected by the climate crisis—such as Greenland, Iceland, and Europe’s glacier regions—as well as in sites of human impact like the coal mining area of Lützerath, now shape his practice. These encounters drive a conceptually grounded approach that borders on activism. Broader social tensions also resonate in his work, which is expressed through multimedia formats.
The choice of medium, material, form, and scale always arises from the conceptual needs of each project. For every topic he engages with, he isolates a core idea and distills it to its essentials. This reduction creates clarity from which complex relationships can be revealed and made accessible. Some works begin as momentary photographs that are later expanded through analytical or textual reflection. Others are objects, traces, or impressions collected during field studies, which—simply by being removed from their original context—function as evidence or forensic documentation of destructive processes. Presented like readymades or only minimally altered, they act as relics and memories of sites or conditions, while offering a space for interpretation that connects past realities with future possibilities.
Selected Exhibitions & Recognitions
2025
Leaving Holocene, Group Show, Sender, Hamburg
Surroundings, Utopie und unsichtbare Prozesse, Group Show, Galerie im Marstall, Ahrensburg
2024
You Look Into Everything, Solo Show, Mommsen35 / PrivatRaum, Berlin
Irgendwas mit Natur, Blurred Edges, Group Show, Hinterconti Artspace, Hamburg
Notes For Supplement Existing Knowledge, Group Show/Project, Hamburg, Aarhus (Denmark)
Portraits of Climate, Group Show/Collaboration with CLICCS, University Hamburg
2023
Leaving Holocene, Group Show, Mom Art Space, Hamburg
12 x 1, Galleries Association Hamburg, with Tom Reichstein Contemporary, Solo Show, Jupiter First Floor, Hamburg
Verstrickt, Zerbröckelt (Entangled, Crumbled), Group Show, Tom Reichstein Contemporary, Hamburg
2022
Climate Art Festival, Group Show, Sandtorkai, Hamburg
POSTION, Group Show, Fabrik der Künste, Hamburg
Group Show, Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven
Neustart Kultur Stipendium, Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn (Scholarship, Foundation Art Fund, Bonn)
2021
Union, Solo Show, Kunsthaus Sootboern, Hamburg
Admission to the Professional Association of Fine Artists (BBK), Hamburg
Hamburger Zukunftsstipendium für Bildende Kunst, BKM (Future Scholarship for Fine Arts, Hamburg)
