Untitled, 155 West Street, New York City, XII; August 29, 2005

After earning her degree in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1991, Vera Lutter moved to New York City to enroll in the Photography and Related Media program at the School of Visual Arts, receiving her MFA in 1995. While she has gained international recognition for her uniquely produced camera obscura images of industrial and architectural sites around the world, Lutter remains active in New York and features the city as a reoccurring subject. In addition to her work with the camera obscura, she has made video work that focuses on how light and sound articulate time’s passing. In 2008, Lutter designed the set for the Gotham Chamber Opera’s production of Ariadne Unhinged, and the following year she curated the exhibition Nowhere Near at 601Artspace.

Her work has been published in Art Forum, ARTNews, Art in America, BOMB, The New York Times, as well as many books on contemporary art, including Oasis in the City: The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The Photograph as Contemporary Art (Thames & Hudson), and Women Photographers (Prestel). Lutter has received several awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2002) and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2001). In early 2017 Lutter was announced as LACMA’s first artist in residence. The residency took place from February 2017 – February 2019 and culminated in the exhibition Museum in the Camera (2021).