“Produced with a camera obscura, Lutter’s images are different than those created by typical photographic means, especially because they are not made with the aid of conventional reproduction technology. A negative does not exist to make prints (so each image is unique), and no mechanical means guides the exposure. Lutter’s works employ minimally invasive techniques. She modulates the intensity of light by manipulating it directly on the surface, in a temporal and morphological way. These minimal techniques provoke questions of whether these works should even be considered photography or whether they represent a recourse to prephotographic methods of image making that engage shadows, reflections, and other light effects (effects that Lutter has incorporated into her compositions for scenographic works). […]

Two modes are at work that distance Lutter’s mechanically produced images from conventional representation to the greatest possible extent while not entirely dismissing it. In stark contrast to a digital manipulation process that expands image content, Lutter’s process expands the temporal moment of image capture. Her retouching of the photographic paper is carried out by hand during the exposure. As a result, one could say that these are works on paper. The process Lutter employs is far more fragile and ephemeral, and thus points precisely to what seems to slip away from traditional documentary photography: the chaotic side of a world in motion that mirrors the ruin one might encounter in fiction.”

– Excerpt from the essay “To Set the Negative as a Metaphor for Light: On Vera Lutter’s Aesthetic Process” by Gertrud Koch from Vera Lutter, 2012.

   
Solo Exhibitions (* indicates exhibition catalogue)
2023 when Stones were Blooming, Carling Dalenson, Stockholm, Sweden
  A World of Images, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2022 Fragments of Time Past, Gagosian, Athens, Greece
  Between Then and Now, Alfonso Artiaco, Naples, Italy
  Xippas Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland
2021 Museum in the Camera, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA *
2018 Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
  Turning Time, Gagosian, London, UK
2017 Painting on Paper: Vera Lutter’s Old Master Photographs, LACMA Booth at TEFAF, Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY
2016 Paestum, Alfonso Artiaco, Naples, Italy
  Xippas Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland
  Inverted Worlds, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
2015 Inverted Worlds, The Museum of Fine Art Houston, TX
  Gagosian, New York, NY
2014 Venice, Weinstein Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
  Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany
  Clock Tower, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2013 Folding Four in One, Galerie Xippas, Paris, France
2012 Carré d'Art – Musée d'art contemporain, Nîmes, France *
2011 Alfonso Artiaco, Naples, Italy
  Studies for Ground Zero, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
  Galerie Max Hetzler, Eifel, Germany
  Egypt, Gagosian, London, UK *
  a ghost still is like a place, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO *
2009 Galerie Xippas, Paris, France
  Gagosian, Beverly Hills, CA
  Samar Hussein, Carolina Nitsch Project Room, New York, NY
2008 Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany
  Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2007 Galleria Nicolo Cardi, Milan, Italy
  Gagosian, New York, NY *
2005 Galerie Xippas, Athens, Greece
  Focus: Vera Lutter, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX
  Nabisco Factory, Beacon, Dia:Beacon, Beacon, NY
2004 Battersea, Gagosian, London, UK *
  Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin-Mitte, Germany
  Inside In, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria *
2003 Gagosian, New York, NY
2002 Chicago Obscura, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL
  Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany
2001 Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland (with Hanspeter Hofmann) *
2000 Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA
  Barbara Flynn Gallery, Sydney, Australia
1999 Time Traced, Dia Center for the Arts, New York, NY (with Rodney Graham)
1999 Roth Horowitz, New York, NY *
1998 Wooster Gardens, New York, NY
1996 On New York, Wooster Gardens, New York, NY
   
Group Exhibitions
2024 In the Now: Gender and Nation in Europe, Selections from the Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl Photography Collection, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY *
  Show!, Neue Galerie Graz, Graz, Austria
2023 Time, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
  Photography Now, V&A South Kensington, London, UK
  Industrial Rhapsody, BlackBox, Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, Munich, Germany
2022 A History of Photography: Selections from the Museum's Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
 
  Part 2, Scully Tomasko Foundation, New York, NY
  Part 4, Ricco/Maresca, New York, NY
  Part 5, TOTAH, New York, NY
  Part 7, Industry City, Brooklyn, NY
  Visiones Expandidas. Fotografía y Experimentación, CaixaForum, Madrid, Spain *
2021 Photographing the Fantastic, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL
  Photography! - Meisterwerke aus dem SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen, Saarlandmuseum – Moderne Galerie, Saarbrücken, Germany
  Womanology. José Ramón Prieto Collection, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain *
  TRANSFORMATION, Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, Blowing Rock, NC
  Civilization - Quelle époque !, Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France
  30 ans déjà! #1, Galerie Xippas, Paris, France
  Paysages. Regards croisés, Salle d'expo du Cyel à La Roche-sur-Yon, La Roche-sur-Yon, France
2020 Civilisation, Photography, Now, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand
  30 Years of Women, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
2019 Looking Back: Ten Years of Pier 24 Photography, Pier 24, San Francisco, CA *
  Spaces and Places: Works from the Collection, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX
  dialogues #1 Baronian Xippas Brussels, Galerie Xippas, Paris, France
  Günther Förg, Ed Ruscha, Olafur Eliasson, Vera Lutter, Jeff Wall and Darren Almond, Carolina Nitsch, New York, NY
  NOMEN: American Women Artists from 1945 to Today, Phillips, New York, NY
  Civilization: The Collective Life, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
  Paysages. Regards croisés, Salle d'expo du Cyel à La Roche-sur-Yon, La Roche-sur-Yon, France
2018 32Q: 1120 Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
  Civilization: The Collective Life, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea *
  By The Sea, The Marquee Projects, Bellport, NY
  This Must be the Place, JPMorgan Chase Art Collection at Paris Photo 2018, Paris, France
  Vision of the Other Worlds, Sargent’s Daughters, New York, NY
  Sun Pictures Then and Now: Talbot and his Legacy Today, Photo London, London & Hans P. Kraus Jr., London, UK
  Poussières d’étoiles, group show, La Laiterie, Massignac, France *
  About Photography, Gagosian, San Francisco, CA
  Photographs Take Time: Pictures from the Chrysler Collection, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
  Facing the Camera, Hans Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs, New York, NY
2017 Masterpiece Art Society 2017, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
  re:collection, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL
  The Mechanics of Expression: Vera Lutter, Sameer Makarius & Otto Steinert, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY
2016 Belief + Doubt: Selections from The Francie Bishop Good and David Horvitz Collection, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL *
  Lunar Attraction, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
  Photography Reinvented: The Collection of Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC *
  30°, Alfonso Artiaco, Naples, Italy
  A New and Mysterious Art: Ancient Photographic Methods in Contemporary Art, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY
  Deconstruction Photographique, Topographie de L’Art, Paris, France *
  The Memory of the Future: Photographic Dialogues Between Past, Present, and Future, Musée de l’Elysée-Les Éditions Noir sur Blanc, Lausanne, Switzerland *
  This is a Photograph, Penland Gallery, Penland, NC
2015 Altered Appearances, Fisher Landau Center for Art, Long Island City, NY
  Venice: Five Centuries of the World’s Most Alluring City, Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Nagoya, Japan
  Industria, oggi: Contemporary Photographs from the MAST Collection, Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy
  Framing Desire: Photography and Video, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX
  The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs from the National Gallery of Art, Acquired with the Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
2014 SPOT ON, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany
  Convergences: Selected Photographs from the Permanent Collection, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA
  Now You See It: Photography and Concealment, The Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art, New York, NY
2013 Decisive Moments: Photographs from the Collection of Cherye R. and James F. Pierce, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, HI
  REMEMBER EVERYTHING: 40 Years Galerie Max Hetzler, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany *
  Flowers & Mushrooms, Museum der Moderne, Mönchsberg, Salzburg, Austria *
  Legacy: Photographs from the Emily Fisher Landau Collection, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
  The Distaff Side, The Granary, Sharon, CT
  0 to 60: The Experience of Time Through Contemporary Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC *
  Cosa Mentale, Paysage(s): Paysage-fiction et le Nouveau Pittoresque, Musée du vieux château de Laval, Laval, France
  The Time is Now, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
  Light Sensitive: Photographic Works from North Carolina Collections, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC
  Big Pictures, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX
2012 Fruits of Passion: Société des Amis du Mnam - Dix ans du Projet pour l'Art Contemporain, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France *
  Recent Acquisitions, Part I: Contemporary Photographs, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
  Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL *
  Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection, Irish Museum of Art, Dublin, Ireland
  Cosa Mentale, Paysage(s): Paysage-fiction et le Nouveau Pittoresque, Musée de La Roche-sur-Yon, La Roche-sur-Yon, France *
  Myths & Realities, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY *
  People and the City, Centre of Contemporary Art (CoCA), Toruń, Poland
2011 Moderne: Selbstmord der Kunst?, Neue Galerie Graz, Joanneumsviertel, Graz, Austri
  Prix Pictet Presentation, Les Rencontres d’Arles, France
  Art Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland *
  Legacy: Photographs from the Emily Fisher Landau Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY *
  Measuring the World: Heterotopias and Knowledge Spaces in Art, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria *
  L’objet photographique: une invention permanente, Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris, France
  Public Works, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL
  Prix Pictet Exhibition, Passage de Retz, Paris, France *
  Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA *
  Eye Wonder: Photography from the Bank of America Collection, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
  PROCESS, Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY
  Sténopé: un procédé photographique, Artothèque de Vitré, Vitré, France
  New Prints 2011/Winter, International Print Center, New York, NY
  Accrochage, Carolina Nitsch Project Room, New York, NY
  Recent Acquisitions: Prints and Photographs, the Stokes Gallery at The New York Public Library, New York, NY
2010 Still / Moving, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel *
  Prix Pictet, Growth Shortlist Preview, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris, France
  Imaginário da Paisagem – Obras da BESart / Colecção Banco Espírito Santo, Centro de Artes Visuais, Coimbra, Portugal
  Vaxination, Galerie Xippas, Athens, Greece
  Mixed-Use Manhattan: Photography and Related Practices 1970s to the Present, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain *
  Entre glace et neige, Centro Saint Benin, Région Autonome Vallée d’Aoste, Courmayeur, Italy *
  Crash, Gagosian, London, UK *
  re.volver, Xippas Arte contemporaneo, Montevideo, Uruguay
2009 Extended Family: Contemporary Connections, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
  elles@pompidou, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France *
  Contradictions in Black and White, Hasted Hunt Gallery, New York, NY
2008 Venice: from Canaletto and Turner to Monet, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland *
  to: Night, Contemporary Representations of the Night, The Hunter College Galleries, Hunter College, New York, NY *
  Target Collection of American Photography: A Century in Pictures, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX
  Photography and Architecture, Mitterand + Cramer, Geneva, Switzerland
2007 Welt-Bilder 2 / World Images 2, Helmhaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland *
  du machinique et du vivant: sur une proposition de Régis Durand, A La Reserve, Galerie Xippas, Pacy-sur-eure, France *
  Rückblende: Die Fotosammlung der Neuen Galerie Graz, Neue Galerie Graz, Joanneumsviertel, Graz, Austria *
  Taken with Time: a camera obscura project, The Atrium Gallery, Marion Center for Photographic Arts, Santa Fe, NM
  Façade, Architecture, Space, Cook Fine Art, New York, NY
  The Big Picture, The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
  Target Collection of American Photography: A Century in Pictures, Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX
2006 Alchemy: Twelve Contemporary Artists Exploring the Essence of Photography, Purdy Hicks, London, UK *
  Modern Photographs: The Machine, the Body and the City, Gifts from the Charles Cowles Collection, Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL *
  Target Collection of American Photography: A Century in Pictures, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
  In Sight: Recent Additions to the Permanent Collection, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL
  Taken with Time: a camera obscura project, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA *
  Out of the Camera: Analoge Fotografie Im Digitalen Zeitalter, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld, Germany
  Kunst und Photographie—Photographie und Kunst, Galerie Bernd Klüser, Munich, Germany
  À la (re)découverte des collections photographiques de Musée de La Roche-sur-Yon, Musée de La Roche-sur-Yon, La Roche-sur-Yon, France
  Carbonic Anhydride, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Germany *
  Black & White, Hellenic American Union, Athens, Greece *
2005 Strange Days, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL
  El Diablo non es tan malo como se pinta, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
  Roger Ballen, Alec Soth, Vera Lutter, Gagosian, New York, NY
  Contemporary Obscurists, Alan Klotz Gallery, New York, NY
2004 26a Bienal de São Paulo: Image Smugglers in a Free Territory, Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo, São Paulo, Brazil *
  Beginning Here: 101 Ways, Visual Arts Gallery, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
  The Amazing & The Immutable, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL *
  Present Tense 7, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
2003 Defying Gravity: Contemporary Art and Flight, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC *
  Wings of Art – Motiv Flugzeug, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany
  Strange Days, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
  Landscapes of Man, Slusser Gallery, University of Michigan School of Art and Design, Ann Arbor, MI
  Contemporary Photos from the Manfred Heiting Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
  The Eye and the Camera: A History of Photography, Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, Austria
  Wings of Art – Motiv Flugzeug, Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany *
  Same Time This Year, Gagosian, New York, NY
2002 Art on Paper 2002, Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC
  Visions from America: Photographs from the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1940–2001, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY *
  Life of the City, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
  Exchange & Transform, Kunstverein München, Munich, Germany
  2002 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY *
  Populated, International Artists Studio Program in Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden
2001 Enduring Love, Gasser and Grunert Gallery, New York, NY
  What’s New: Recent Acquisitions in Photography, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2000 Collectors Choice, Exit Art, New York, NY
  New York Now 2000: Contemporary Work in Photography, Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY
  Photography about Photography, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, NY
1999 The Big Picture: Large Format Photography, Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT
  Low Tech, The Light Factory, Charlotte, NC
  Views from the Edge of the World, Marlborough Chelsea, New York, NY
1998 New York: A Divided City, International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University, New York, NY
  About Painting, Part III, Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY
1997 Light, Bennington College, Bennington, VT
  CityScapes: A Survey of Urban Landscapes, Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY *
1995 NYC, Visual Arts Gallery, New York, NY
   
Special Projects
2017–19 Artist in Residence, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
2015 Broadway Billboard: Degas Horses, public installation, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island, NY
2009 Nowhere Near, 601Artspace, New York, NY. Curated by the Vera Lutter
2008 Ariadne Unhinged, Gotham Chamber Opera, New York, NY. Set design by the artist. Choreography by Karole Armitage
   
Awards
2002 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
2001 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
  Artist-in-Residence, International Artists Studio Program in Sweden (IASPS)
1999 Kulturstiftung der ZF Friedrichshafen Grant
1997 International Center for Advanced Studies Grant, Project on Cities and Urban Knowledge, New York University
1993 Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) Grant
   
Education
MFA, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA
Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, Munich, Germany