janet cardiff

Life

Janet Cardiff was born in Brussels, Ontario and studied at Queen's University (BFA) and the University of Alberta (MVA). She works in collaboration with her partner George Bures Miller, born 1960, Berlin, Germany. Janet Cardiff and George Bures-Miller currently live and work in Berlin.

Work

Cardif's installations and walking pieces are often audio-based. She has been included in exhibitions such as: Present Tense, Nine Artists in the Nineties, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, NowHere, Louisiana Museum, Denmark, The Museum as Muse, Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie International '99/00, the Tate Modern Opening Exhibition as well as a project commissioned by Artangel in London. This project ("The Missing Voice (Case Study B)") was commissioned in 1999 and continues to run. It is an audio tour that leaves from the Whitechapel Library, next to the Whitechapel tube stop and snakes its way through London's East End, weaving fictional narrative with descriptions about the actual landscape. Cardiff represented Canada at the São Paulo Art Biennial in 1998, and at the 6th Istanbul Biennial in 1999 with her partner George Bures Miller. Cardiff and Bures Miller represented Canada the 49th Venice Biennale with "The Paradise Institute" (2001), a 16-seat movie theatre where viewers watched a film, becoming entangled as witnesses to a possible crime played out in the real world audience and on the screen. The artists won La Biennale di Venezia Special Award at Venice, presented to Canadian artists for the first time and the Benesse prize, recognizing artists who try to break new artistic ground with an experimental and pioneering spirit. Cardiff and Bures Miller have recently had exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2005), Luhring Augustine, New York (2004), Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2003), Art Gallery of Ontario (2002), National Gallery of Canada (2002) and Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Ontario (2000). A recent mid-career retrospective, Janet Cardiff: A Survey of Works, Including Collaborations with George Bures Miller, opened at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, Queens, in 2001 and has travelled to Montréal, Oslo, and Turin. Exhibitions in 2006 include Good Vibrations–Le arti visive e il Rock, Palazzo delle Papesse, Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Anticipation, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago and Sonic Presence, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway.

In 2005, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden of the Smithsonian Institute commissioned and exhibited Cardiff's work "Words Drawn in Water". Cardiff and Bure Miller's works are included in private and public collections in Canada, the United States and Europe.

Janet Cardiff is represented by Luhring Augustine Gallery, NYC, and Barbara Weis Gallery, Berlin.