Asta Gröting (born in Herford, Germany 1961) is a contemporary artist. She works in a variety of media like sculpture, performance, and video. In her work, Gröting “is conceptually and emotionally asking questions of the social body by taking something away from it and allowing this absence to do the talking.” Biography Asta Gröting studied sculpture at the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts, graduating in 1986. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at KINDL - Centre for Contemporary Art Berlin, the Kunstraum Dornbirn, the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, the LENTOS Art Museum in Linz, and the Henry Moore Sculpture Institute, among others. She has also participated in international group exhibitions at venues including the Maas Museum in Sydney, the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, the Hartware Medienkunstverein Dortmund, and the 22nd Bienal de São Paulo. She is currently a professor at the Braunschweig University of Art. Gröting's earlier work focused on sculpture, before she also turned to video and performance, starting 1993. Gröting's works often present ordinary, familiar elements, where the viewer's attention is drawn towards their material transformation, caused by the exaggeration of the familiar. In Gröting's work there is a focus on what is not visible, like the inner voice, the space between lovers having sex, the digestive system, or the inside of holes made by bullets, and the ways in which the invisible can be brought to the surface. As such, she allows absence to do the talking. In these explorations a sense of realism is at work that pays attention to what is not considered to be beautiful, or to what is seen as damaged or even damaging. It develops works that convert psychological and emotional perspectives to the complex relationships of people into clear forms. Often they are presented in work groups or series. Series (selection) Berlin Fassaden (2016–2018) consists of a series of negative imprints made out of silicone that are monumental in size. They track the traces of the bullet holes made during war in facades that have not yet been renovated. For Gröting the casts function as photographic long exposures that depict the story from the moment of the bullets’ impact to the present time, taking along dust, dirt, and even graffiti. “I want to look from inside these destroyed walls and facades into the world,” Gröting says, “as if I could see my own face staring back at me.” Touch is