About this Artist

The costume designer FLORENCE VON GERKAN was born in Hamburg and studied costume design at the University of Arts Berlin with Prof. Martin Rupprecht.

Her first original creations led the artist by way of King Lear back to Hamburg, at the famous Thalia Theatre, to begin a long-lasting partnership with director Jürgen Flimm and stage designer Erich Wonder. She went on to create the costume design for many international productions in Zürich and Vienna; in Bayreuth she worked with Flimm and Wonder on Der Ring des Nibelungen by Wagner.

Her first time designing for ballet came with 2003’s Romeo and Juliet, followed by The Nutcracker at the Theatre Basel, and by Swan Lake with choreographer Heinz Spoerli for the Ballett Zürich. In the season 2011-2012 Florence von Gerkan worked at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden on the Mozart-cycle with Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, and Le nozze di Figaro, directed by Philipp Himmelmann.

During the Ruhrtriennale 2012-2014 she realized the costume design for John Cage’s Europeras I & II, Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury, and Louis Andriessen’s De Materie. In 2015 Florence worked during the Salzburg Festival together with Thomas Hengelbrock on the new production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

In the year 2016, in addition to a collaboration with Jürgen Flimm at the Staatsoper Berlin, comes this world premiere of Louis Andriessen’s Theatre of the World in the co-production at Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA and at the National Opera in Amsterdam, working with Pierre Audi.

Since 2003 Florence von Gerkan is Chief Professor of Costume Design at the University of Arts Berlin.