‘I don’t know what you want to know,” says Anne Imhof, three-quarters of the way into our interview. Her cautious smile, between curtains of jet black hair, changes into a sceptical pout. I have just quoted a headline at Imhof, one of Germany’s most important contemporary artists, that described her 2025 New York show as “a bad Balenciaga ad”.
Just a few years ago, Imhof was the hottest ticket on the international art circuit: a Golden Lion winner at the 2017 Venice Biennale, whose transformation of the German pavilion into a sinister, S&M-flavoured “catwalk show from hell” had masses scrambling to join the queue. Imhof was a cultural polymath whose shows combined etchings, paintings, dance, live music and film; a muse to fashion designers whose sporty goth aesthetic – Adidas tracksuit bottoms, chunky trainers, black leather – beseiged the clubs of Berlin and beyond.
