Katrin Sigurdardottir was born in Reykjavík, Iceland in 1967. She came to the United States as a student and completed a BFA with honors from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1990. She received an MFA From Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, in 1995. She is based in New York City, where she has produced her artworks for over 30 years.
She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including Pollock-Krasner Award (2021), The Harker Award for Interdisciplinary Studies (2016), The Creative Capital Award (2015), The Richard Serra Prize at The National Gallery of Art, Reykjavík (2013), The Icelandic National Artist Fellowship (numerous times btw 2024 and 1997), The Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award (2005), The Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant, New York (2005), Carnegie Art Award (Finalist, 2002) and The Gudmunda Kristinsdóttir Memorial Award, Reykjavik Museum of Art (2002).
Sigurðardóttir has exhibited extensively over the last twenty years. She represented Iceland in the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, and her work was featured in the 33rd Bienal de São Paulo (2018); FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art (2018); the Torino Triennale (2005); and Momentum, the Nordic biennial (2000). She has had solo exhibitions at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2015); Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London (2015); SculptureCenter, New York (2014); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2010); MoMA PS1, New York (2006); FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France (2006); Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Mexico City (2005); and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (2004). In 2019–20, her first survey exhibition took place at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at MSU, and the same years her work will be featured in exhibitions at the Biennale Rabat, Morocco; Museu Nacional da República, Brasilia, Brazil; and Museo de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
Forthcoming in 2026, two new large-scale, permanent public artworks by Sigurdardottir will be unveiled. Commissioned by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Percent for Art Program, Sigurdardottir collaborated with Weiss Manfredi Architects on the New Rego Park Public Library, in Queens, New York, for which she received the Annual Award of Excellence in Design, from the New York City Public Design Commission. And on the public grounds of Primusomradet, a new residential development in central Stockholm, Sweden, Sigurdardottir is creating an artwork, commissioned by the city of Stockholms Percent for Art Program.
Her work is included in numerous public and private collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, The National Gallery of Art, Reykjavik, Iceland, The Walker Art Collection, Minneapolis, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at MSU, East Lansing, MI, MIT Permanent Collection, Cambridge, MA, The Tang Museum at Skidmore College, NY, The Reykjavik Museum of Art, Iceland, Arion Collection, Reykjavík, ASÍ Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland. The Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL, Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain de Bourgogne, Dijon, France , University of Iceland Art Collection, Reykjavik, Iceland.
Sigurdardóttir´s work has been the subject of several publications, including the monograph published on the occasion of her Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, in 2013. ( Heisler, E., Ómarsdóttir, K., Bonacossa, I., Ceruti M., Sigurðardóttir, K., “Foundation, “Katrín Sigurðardóttir, The Pavilion of Iceland at the Venice Biennale 2013”, foreword by Jakobsdóttir, K., Kirch, D., Yngvason, H., edited by Yngvason, H., published by Marsilio Editori, Venice in collaobration with The Reykjavík Museum of Art). Other publications where her work has been featured include: “Surface – Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality and Media”, by Guliana Bruno, published by U. Chicago Press in 2014, “Ecological Urbanism”, by Estafavi & Doherty, published by Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Lars Muller in 2010, and Automatic Cities: The Architectural Imaginary in Contemporary Art, by Robin Clark & Giuliana Bruno, published by Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego in 2009. Sigurdardottir was one of 5 contemporary artists included in “Women Artists, an Illustrated History”, by Nancy G. Heller, published by Abbeville Press in 2004. Her work was also featured extensively in the 5-volume History of Icelandic Art, edited by Olafur Kvaran and published by the National Gallery of Art, Reykjavik, in 2011. In 2017 she was featured in “The Artists Project: What Artists See When They Look at Art, Published by the Metropolitan Museum and Phaidon Press, and 2018 her work was included in the historical survey “Nordic Impressions – Art from Aland, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, 1821-2018”, published by The Phillips Collection, Washington DC.
Her work has been reviewed and featured in the press, in such publications as The New York Times, Boston Globe, The London Observer, Kunstforum International, Artforum, Modern Painters, Architectural Record, Bomb Magazine, Places Journal, Art in America, SFMoMA´s Open Space, Brooklyn Rail, ArtNews, Art and Antiques, The New Yorker, Sculpture Magazine, Art Papers and many other.
This website is currently being updated. For further information, please contact the artist at inquiries(at)ksstudio.is