Mack Karin

Karin Mack was born and raised in Vienna, where she attended school and studied History of Arts and Italian at the University of Vienna. At the age of 16 she was given her first camera by her father a very gifted amateure photographer. Being married to a critic of architecture she turned to photography of architecture and worked for 10 years for the avantguarde architects of Austria.
Beeing a woman she realised unequalty between women and men in society and started with conceptual selfportraits reflecting the situation. In the early 1990ies she moved to the Netherlands for 11 years. There she created a garden around her house and observed its seasonal rhythms also through photoconcepts and films. Various aspects of nature, landscape and people’s relationship to it became a matter of interest. Back in Austria she turned to the rocky landscape where she had spent most of her schoolhollidays, situated between Semmering and Rax. Travelling a lot she came back with photographs that turned into conceptual work. But she is also a close observer of whats going on in society and created collages reflecting European identity in a global World.
Her work was supported by scholarships by the Community of Vienna in 1980 and the Austrian State in 1985. In 1982 she won the Römerquelle Artcompetition and was honered in 2010 with the Golden Lorel of Künstlerhaus Vienna for her entire work. Three books where edited about her work and she contributed to books and catalogues as well.

Since 1980 she is a member of Künstlerhaus Vienna and since 2007 of FLUSS (a photo- and media initiative).
Her work is mainly exhibited in Europe (Austria, Italy, Germany, England, France, Poland) but also in the US in New York.