Gregor Schneider

Gregor Schneider (born 1969 in Rheydt) is a German artist. His projects have proven controversial and provoked intense discussions. In 2001, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for his infamous work Totes Haus u r exhibited at the German Pavilion.

Life and work Gregor Schneider studied from 1989 to 1992 at several German Art Academies including the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Art Academy of Düsseldorf) and at Kunstakademie Münster (Academy of Fine Arts Münster), and at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (University of Fine Arts Hamburg). From 1999 to 2003, he served as a guest professor / educational activities at several art schools, including De Ateliers in Amsterdam, the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg, and De Ateliers in Amsterdam, the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. From 2009 to 2012 he was a professor of sculpting at the University of Art Berlin and from 2012 to 2016 a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. Since 2016 he is a follower of Tony Cragg at Arts Academy Düsseldorf as a professor of sculpting.

In 2015, Gregor Schneider was elected to the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts. In May 2018, Schneider was elected as a new member of the Visual Arts Section on the Berlin Academy of Arts.

At the age of 16, Schneider had his first solo exhibition entitled, Pubertäre Verstimmung, at the gallery Kontrast in Mönchengladbach. Since the beginning of the 1990s he has worked with rooms in galleries and museums. He conceives the rooms as the-dimensional, sculptures that can be walked through, which oftentimes hide or alter the existing gallery- and museum rooms; the rooms he works with are existing rooms he finds in different dwellings or domestic buildings. In 1985 he began dismantling and rebuilding rooms in an apartment building in Rheydt, which he entitled, Haus u r.

The "Haus u r"

Since 1985, Schneider has been working elaborately on an inherited house on Unterheydener Strasse in Mönchengladbach's Rheydt district. Udo Kittelmann, at that time, director of the Kölnischen Kunstverein invited the artist to create solo exhibition in the German pavilion. Within three months time Schneider built a Totes Haus u r inside the pavilion, he transported by ship a total of 24 original rooms using100 packing pieces with a combined weight of 150 tons from Rheydt to Venice; Schneider refers to the rooms, which he has built out of the Haus u r or which have been rebuilt at another place, as Totes Haus u r. Shortly after, German newspaper headlines read, "Artist wants to let people die". Politicians of several German political parties, the CDU, FDP and Die Grünen, voiced their opinions accusing Schneider of "abusing of artistic freedom" calling his plans an "attempt at provocation" and a "half-baked idea". On several online newspapers threads, people posted comments that glorified violence. Schneider got death threats by phone and mail. "There are absurd death threats against me", Schneider said in an interview with Westdeutsche Zeitung. The Guardian headline on April 26 read: "There is nothing perverse about a dying person in an art gallery". Overall, there was extensive media coverage in several countries in multiple languages.

Sterberaum has eventually been executed at Kunstraum Innsbruck (2011–2012) as an empty room, "a personal commission to design the room and the environment in which we die, in which we dissolve, to then be dead." A glowing free-standing structure featuring 2 doors, 2 sets of windows, 5 lamps, white walls and ceiling, and a parquet floor was placed inside the pitch-black gallery. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the room was also placed on the stage of the Staatstheater Darmstadt and streamed live for three days and nights.

Exhibitions and projects 1985 Pubertäre Verstimmung, Galerie Kontrast, Mönchengladbach 1985 – today Haus u r, Rheydt 1992 1985–1992 September 92 – , Galerie Löhrl, Mönchengladbach 1993 16. September 1993 – , Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf 1994 11. März 1994 – , Galerie Andreas Weiss, Berlin 1994 Drei Arbeiten, Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld 1995 Fotos und Videos 1985–1995, Galerie Luis Campaña, Cologne 1996 Gregor Schneider, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern 1996 Gregor Schneider, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Stuttgart 1997 schlafen, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf 1997 Hannelore Reuen alte Hausschlampe, Rheydt 1992, Galerie Luis Campaña, Cologne 1997 Totes Haus u r 1985–1997, Rheydt, Kunsthalle Frankfurt a. M., Frankfurt a. M. 1997 Gregor Schneider, Gallery Wako Works of Art, Tokyo 1997 Puff(aus Berlin), Gallery Sadie Coles HQ, London 1998 Puff, Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 1998 La maison morte u r 1985–1998, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris 1998 Gregor Schneider, Gallery Wako Works of Art, Tokyo 1998 haus u r, Rheydt, Aarhus Kunst Museum, Denmark 1999 Death House 1985–1999 Cellar, Galleria Massimo de Carlo, Milano 1999 53rd Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvenia 1999 schlafen, Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven 1999 Totes Haus, Rheydt, Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, Bremerhaven 2000 Hannelore Reuen Alte Hausschlampe, Fundacja Galerii Foksal, Warszawa 2000 Keller, Wiener Secession, Wien 2000 Alte Hausschlampe, Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld 2000 Apocalypse, Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art, Royal Academy of Art, London 2000 Death House u r, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin 2001 Totes Haus u r, 49. Biennale von Venedig, Venezia 2001 N. Schmidt, Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven 2002 Haus u r, Stiftung DKM, Duisburg 2002 Gregor Schneider, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf 2002 Gregor Schneider, Gallery Wako Works of Art, Tokyo 2002 Fotografie und Skulptur, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen 2003 Gregor Schneider. Hannelore Reuen, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg 2003 My Private #1, via Pasteur 21, Milano 2003 Death House u r, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, California 2003 517West 24th, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York 2003 Gregor Schneider, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen 2004 Die Familie Schneider, Artangel London, London 2005 Cube Venice 2005, Gallery Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf 2005 28. August 2005 – , Kabinett Für Aktuelle Kunst Bremerhaven, Bremerhaven 2006 Totalschaden, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn 2006 4538KM, MDD Museum Dhont-Dhaenens, Deurle, 2006 Doublings, Galerie Luis Campaña, Cologne 2006 Gregor Schneider Fotografie, Kunstverein Arnsberg e. V, Arnsberg 2006 2. November 2006, Kunst-Station Sankt Peter Köln, Cologne 2006 My Private escaped from Italy, Centre international d'art et du paysage de L'ile Vassiviere, Ile de vassiviere 2006 26. November 2006, Fondazione Morra Greco, Napoli 2007 Gregor Schneider, Milwaukee art Museum, Milwaukee 2007 Weisse Folter, K20K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf 2008 süßer duft, La Maison Rouge, Paris 2008 Gregor Schneider. Doublings, Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf BE 2008 Cube Venice – Design and conception, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venezia 2008 END, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2009 Garage 2009. Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2010 Gregor Schneider – Marienstraße, Peill Prize, Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren 2011 Punto Muerto, Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, Madrid 2011 Sterberaum, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck 2014 Gregor Schneider. Hauptstraße 85 a, Synagoge Stommeln 2014 Neuerburgstrasse 21, Installation in der Halle Kalk des Schauspiel Köln 2014 German Angst, Yokohama Triennale 2014, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama 2014 Gregor Schneider: Totlast, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg in Zusammenarbeit mit der Ruhrtriennale (wurde vom Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Duisburg abgesagt) 2014 Liebeslaube, Volksbühne Berlin, Berlin 2014 it's all Rheydt, Gallery Wako Works of Art, Tokyo 2014 Die Familie Schneider, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin 2014 unsubscribe, Zacheta – National Gallery of Art, Warszawa 2014 unsubscribe, Volksbühne Berlin, Berlin 2015 White Torture 2005 – today, XII Bienal de La Habana, La Habana, Cuba 2015 Gregor Schneider, Museum Künstlerkolonie, Darmstadt, Germany 2016/2017 Gregor Schneider: Wand vor Wand (2. Dezember 2016 bis 19. Februar 2017), Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn 2017 Kindergarten, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Ciudad de México, Mexico 2017 Invisible City, Onassis Cultural Centre / Fast Forward Festival, Omonia Square, Athens 2017 N. Schmidt, Pferdegasse 19, 48143 Münster, Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster, Germany 2017 Never Ending Stories, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany 2018 Fundamentalist Cubes: Inside Spaces by Bruce Nauman, Absalon, and Gregor Schneider, M-ARCO, Marseille, France

Awards 1995 Kunstpreis NRW 1995 Werkstipendium des Kunstfonds e.V., Bonn 1995 Werkstipendium der Stiftung Kunst und Kultur, NRW 1996 Projektförderung Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart 1996 Karl-Schmidt-Rottluff-Stipendium 1996 Peter Mertes Stipendium 1996 Dorothea von Stetten Art Award 1997 Förderpreis der Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Stiftung 1998/99 Kunststipendium Bremerhaven 1999 Art Scholarship Villa Romana, Florence 2001 Golden Lion, Biennale Venedig 2002 1. Preis des Papier-Kunst-Preises des Verband Deutscher Papierfabriken VDP 2006 Best Exhibition of the Year, Contemporary Art in Belgium 2006 2008 Günther Peill Kunstpreis 2011 Bambi LTD Award, Israel 2011 Special Jury Award vom Star Ananda, Bengali television, India 2014 Children's Choice Award the Ruhrtriennale 2014: Best of the Best 2014 Wilhelm-Loth-Prize, Darmstadt 2014 AICA Prize: The special exhibition of 2014 2015 Member of North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts 2016 Art critics have chosen the show "Wand vor Wand" in Bonn's Bundeskunsthalle for the exhibition of the year in NRW. 2018 Member of Visual Arts Section on the Berlin Academy of Arts.

Literature Gregor Schneider, Udo Kittelmann: Gregor Schneider, Totes Haus Ur, La Biennale di Venezia, 2001, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2002, Gregor Schneider: Die Familie Schneider, Steidl Göttingen, 2006, Gregor Schneider: Cubes: Art in the Age of Global Terrorism Gva-Vertriebsgemeinschaft, 2006, Kunstforum International (Plateau der Menschheit), Nr. 156, August to October 2001. S. 288 und 305.