Curriculum Vitae

IN SHORT:

Born on 28 January 1961 in Zürich. He lives and works in Cologne and Barcelona with his partner and their son.

From 1984 to 1991 he studied Intermedia visual arts at the Kunstakademie Münster with Prof. Timm Ulrichs and Prof. Paul Isenrath, graduating in 1991. In parallel, he studied Design at the AUS in Münster and Dortmund, graduating in 1991. He has also attended lectures and seminars in Philosophy, History, German Literature and Linguistics at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.
During 1999 - 2001 he was artistic and scientific assistant to Prof. Zbigniew Rybczynski at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. In 2004 he was a Visiting Tutor with Montse Badia at Goldsmiths College in London (running the course 'Artistic Practices with Media and Related Curatorial Approaches - Strategies of Presentation and Intervention in the Public Sphere') and in 2004/05 he co-curated the travelling exhibition Paisatges Mediàtics (Mediascapes) for the Fundació "la Caixa", Barcelona.

Andreas M. Kaufmann has been a freelance visual artist since 1992. He has received numerous awards (such as the Wilhelm Lehmbruck scholarship). His exhibitions in international museums and arts centers include: "Blaise Cendrars – aux coeur des arts", Musée des beaux-arts La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland (2015); "Hotel Orient", State Museum of Literature Tiflis, Georgia (2014/15); "Lucida Space", NCCA – National Centre for Contemporary Arts Moscow, Russian Federation (2014) ;"Hirschfaktor. Die Kunst des Zitierens", ZKM Karlsruhe | Museum für Neue Kunst (2012/13); Since 2013 is the sculpture "Ich kann, weil ich will, was ich muss" part of the permanently exhibited Ströher Collection at the MKM Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art in Duisburg, Germany; "Andreas M. Kaufmann – Sinnmaschine", Liner Foundation, Appenzell, Switzerland (2011); European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010 with new productions in the exhibition projects "Ruhr Atol" and "Ruhrlights. Twilight Zone", Germany (2010); "Lieux de Belligérance 3", Salses-le-Château Fortress – Centre des Monuments Nationaux, France (2008/9); "Lichtsicht – 1. Projektions- Biennale Bad Rothenfelde", Germany (2007/8); "Stadtlicht – Lichtkunst", Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg – Zentrum Internationaler Skulptur, Germany (2004/5); "100%", Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery, Krakow, Poland (2002) ; "Revolving Doors", Apexart, NYC, USA (2001) & Fundación Telefónica, Madrid, Spain (2004); "Moving Images. Film-Reflektion in der Kunst", Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, "Wandel ohne Wachstum. Stadtbau-Kultur im 21. Jahrhundert", German Pavilion, 6th Venice Architecture Biennale, Giardini di Venezia, Italy (1996).

Last but not least, his oeuvre also includes a number of experimental and/or cooperative and/or interdisci-plinary projects and interventions in public spaces, as well as in the context of art and architecture (for example: "Ortlos" (1996), "No Agreement Today, No Agreement Tomorrow" (2004-2028), "Neither Body – Nor Soul" (2005), "Machinery for Reuleaux" (2007), "Ich kann, weil ich will, was ich muss" (2005-10: in cooperation with the image theorist, art historian and philosopher Prof. Dr. Hans Ulrich Reck), "Between Yesterday  and Tomorrow", (Tbilisi, Georgia 2012: a joint project with the artist, szenographer and curator Irina Kurtishvili).

A central aspect of his artistic practice is the collecting of images over more than 25 years. For the most part these are publicly available images taken from the print media, archives, the Internet, Television and other sources, and are the raw material for many of his multi- or intermedia artworks in which he focuses on the relationship between the public sphere, representation, human identity and singularity in the context of increasing worldwide standardization.

 

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ARTIST STATEMENT

Art calls for quiet and concentration if it is to be developed and experienced beyond short-term individual concerns. Given these conditions, it helps us live a more fully human life. Art also helps us perceive relationships and structures in our increasingly complex lives. It does this through direct experience, by way of attention and reflection, and especially when it embraces content and realities which conventional bourgeois consciousness excludes, distorts or dismisses as meaningless. In this sense, art is part of the basic sustenance of society, just as food and drink are for us as individuals.

Art and culture are always most important when we find ourselves in situations in which we confront crucial questions of meaning. Art is made by people for people and can only be recognized by people, and as such is rooted in the real practice of active sharing and communicating.

I believe it is important to emphasize now, as the omnipresent culture industries extend their sway, that art in the narrower sense is always an individual process, giving public expression to the aims, the position and the worldview of an author in an unrestricted and freely chosen form. Art is public, and embodies the values of freedom and diversity, of dignity, respect and tolerance, which are vital to the continuing good functioning democratic civil societies.

As an individual and an artist I try to live according to these principles, and to contribute to keeping the manifold sources of art and the possibility of individual artistic processes accessible and tangible for the coming generations.

 

© Andreas M. Kaufmann 2010