Tania Franco Klein, Rounded Mirror, Window (Self-portrait), 2022, from the series Break in Case of Emergency. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Eggs, Fork, and Flies (Self-portrait), 2022, from the series Break in Case of Emergency. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Fork, Tub (Self-portrait), 2021, from the series Break in Case of Emergency. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Tunnel (Self-portrait), 2022, from the series Break in Case of Emergency. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Dining Room (Self-portrait), 2017, from the series Positive Disintegration. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Contained (Self-portrait), 2016, from the series Positive Disintegration. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Barren Land (Self-portrait), 2017, from the series Positive Disintegration. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Positive Disintegration (Self-portrait), 2016, from the series Positive Disintegration. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Car, Window (Self-portrait), 2018, from the series Proceed To The Route. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Dear Stranger (Self-portrait), 2020, from the series Proceed To The Route. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Proceed To the Route (Self-portrait), 2018, from the series Proceed To The Route. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Valley (Self-portrait), 2019, from the series Proceed To The Route. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Cocodrile Pet, 2019, from the series Mercado de Sonora. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Soap “Come to Me,” 2019, from the series Mercado de Sonora. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Spiritual Cleansing, 2019, from the series Mercado de Sonora. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein, Voodoo Doll, 2019, from the series Mercado de Sonora. Archival pigment print.
Tania Franco Klein’s photographic practice navigates the psychological landscape of life during the digital era through staged, cinematic tableaux that blur the boundaries between reality and fiction. Utilizing large-scale, vividly hued photographs often displayed in intricate installations comprising murals, videos and framed photographs, her work explores the performative stresses and loneliness inherent in contemporary society.
Franco Klein’s evolving body of work forms a visual diary of modern anxiety, marked by ambiguity and theatricality. She is not trying to create a story with a single narrative thread, but instead offers a playfully surreal collage of experiences for the viewer to unravel.
Her series Positive Disintegration (2016–2019) draws on ideas from Byung-Chul Han’s The Burnout Society which critiques our obsession with productivity, optimization, and relentless self-improvement, fueled by an over-dependence on technology. Using female characters played by the artist, Franco Klein visualizes the emotional consequences of this condition: anxiety, exhaustion, and detachment. The characters, played by the artist, embody a society overwhelmed by its own expectations, where personal fulfillment is endlessly pursued but rarely reached.
Referencing a road trip through the California desert when her GPS continually repeated the phrase “proceed to the route” despite having no signal, Franco Klein’s project Proceed to the Route offers a meditation on the illusion of freedom in our hyper-connected digital age. While the series isn’t overtly about technology, it channels the emotional dissonance of a world where disconnection is both feared and longed for.
With Break in Case of Emergency (2023), Franco Klein entered a new emotional register. What began as an investigation into catharsis, initially imagined through dramatic acts of destruction, evolved into something more playful. The images are absurd, tragicomic, and richly detailed, featuring women subverting the domestic space. The result is a rich visual universe where catharsis arises not from chaos, but from playful autonomy.
Subject Studies, a new body of work that will be featured in MoMA’s upcoming New Photography 2025: Lines of Belonging, is an anthropological investigation into perception, bias, and cultural projection. Photographing over 100 people across four carefully staged scenes, Franco Klein examines how meaning shifts depending on who occupies the frame. The series raises vital questions about representation and the unconscious act of profiling, challenging viewers to confront their assumptions and the narratives they project.
Born in 1990 in Mexico, Tania Franco Klein received her BA in Architecture from Centro Diseño, Cine y Televisión in Mexico City, and her MA in Photography from the University of Arts London. Franco Klein will be featured in New Photography 2025: Lines of Belonging, the 40th anniversary edition of MoMA’s celebrated New Photography series. She was the recipient of the Artproof Schliemann Award supporting Artist Residencies in Arles, France, and her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Getty Center, Los Angeles, and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach. Her first publication Positive Disintegration (2019) was nominated for the Paris Photo Aperture Foundation First Book Award. Franco Klein lives and works between Mexico City and the United States.
