Juergen Staack

Training and background After completing high school, Juergen Staack trained as a photographer. He subsequently attended Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 2002 to 2008 where he studied with Thomas Ruff and Christopher Williams. In 2003, while still a student, he founded the artist group FEHLSTELLE along with other students.

Work Staack developed his own forms of expression in conceptual photography very early in his career, both questioning the translatability of photography to language as well as the “material fragility of the analog photograph and, in its fleeting quality, the digital photograph as well.” which he repeatedly questions. “His drawings, sound installations, speaking images, and poetic performances,” as the journalist Helga Meister laconically comments, “demonstrate the limits of visual representation.” Meanwhile, Peter Friese, former director of Bremen’s Museum Weserburg, concludes: In his artistic work, Staack is not only interested in the questions of What an image is? What constitutes an image? How, when, and where does it emerge? But also: what is the importance of an image in a world shaped by visual stimuli? He finds his terrain as a conceptual artist precisely in the image’s controversial claim to truth and the mass saturation of our world with ever more advanced media of communication. Results of this research are in part surprising investigations that are critical of the image and the media. Staack here moves in the liminal areas of photography and, with a critical gaze that questions contexts, examines the social-anchored use of images with information that crosses various media, with language and text. For Staack, unexpected processes of transformation and translation play a special role in a literal and metaphorical sense. Using illegible codes or news items that dissolve, his works unsettle classical structures of communication, sometimes taking them to absurd lengths. In so doing, they demonstrate “not only gaps between perception and communication, but also the limits of visual representation. In the age of an all dominating global visual culture,” according to art historian Sabine Maria Schmidt, "Juergen Staack poses the question of the foundations and elements that generate images in an entirely new way.”

Solo exhibitions (selection)

2006: Left Behind, … Missing Pictures, Gallery Space Other, Boston, USA 2010: Transformation, Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, Germany 2013: SAKHA, Galerie Konrad Fischer, Berlin, Germany 2013: Script, artothek – Raum für Junge Kunst, Cologne, Germany 2014: Zwei, Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, Germany 2016: Reduktion der Wirklichkeit, Kunstverein Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany 2016: DISPUT, Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen, Germany 2020: Hans-Peter Feldmann, Thomas Ruff, Juergen Staack, Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, Germany 2023: Eilike Schlenkhoff, Juergen Staack, Marburger Kunstverein, Marburg, Germany 2023: Time, Da in die Front, Düsseldorf, Germany 2024: UNSERDEUTSCH, Galerie Konrad Fischer, Berlin, Germany 2024: The Order of Time, Hong Soun & Juergen Staack, SEOJUNG ART Gallery, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Group exhibitions (selection)

2004: realismus update, Jacobi Haus Künstlerverein Malkasten, Düsseldorf, Germany 2005: Rencontre des Arles, Arles, France 2009: FEHLSTELLE – LA ZONA, Public Space, Milan, Italy 2010: Aber Schwarz ist keine Farbe, Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, Germany 2011: ars viva – 2011/12, Museum Folkwang, Essen; Riga Art Space, Riga; Museum Weserburg, Bremen, Germany 2011: Hantmann Staack, Kunstraum, Düsseldorf, Germany 2012: Renania Libre, Galería Helga de Alvear, Madrid, Spain 2013: Transfer, MMCA, National Museum for Contemporary Art, Seoul; Museum Osthaus, Hagen, Germany 2015: AAA – Art and the City, Zurich, Switzerland 2015: More Konzeption – Conception now, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany 2015: daily sounds around, Weltkunstzimmer, Düsseldorf, Germany 2016: Offenes Depot, Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster, Aachen, Germany 2017: Duett mit KünstlerIn, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany 2017: Luther und die Avantgarde, Altes Gefängnis, Wittenberg, Germany 2017: asphalt – Kunststörer, Alte Kämmerei, Düsseldorf, Germany 2017: Mit den Händen zu greifen und doch nicht zu fassen, Kunsthalle Mainz, Mainz, Germany 2017: Stress Field, Fine Arts Literature Art Center, Wuhan, China 2017: Duett mit KünstlerIn, Belvedere 21, Vienna, Austria 2018: Deutschland ist keine Insel, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany 2018: büro komplex, Kunsthaus NRW, Aachen, Germany 2019: Listen to the image, look at the sound, Kai10 – Arthena Foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany 2021: Sound and Silence, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany 2022: Channel: Wave-Particle-Duality, Changwon Sculpture Biennale, Changwon, Republic of Korea 2022: The reality is there anyway, Weltkunstzimmer, Düsseldorf, Germany 2023: A Celebration – the 30th anniversary of the Friends of the Museum für Neue Kunst, Museum for New Art, Freiburg, Germany 2024: Liminal Stages: Explorations on Perception, Existence and Techno-consciousness, Wind H Art Center, Beijing, China 2024: Viewing the World - Positions of current post-photography and digital image culture, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany 2024: Untimely Resonance - Betwixt & Between Waves, Alternativ Space LOOP, Seoul, Republic of Korea 2025: VERBAL NON VERBAL, LOHAUS SOMINSKY Gallery, Munich, Germany

Works in collections Bundeskunstsammlung (Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) Sammlung Museum Folkwang Fördersammlung NRW Sammlung des Kunstpalastes Sammlung Wemhöhner Sammlung Philara

Prizes, residencies, fellowships

Prizes Source:

2011: Förderpreis der Stadt Düsseldorf für Bildende Kunst 2011: ars viva-Preis für Bildende Kunst 2012: NEW POSITIONS (Art Cologne)

Fellowships Source:

2009: Artist in residence, Tokyo Wonder Site 2009: Kunststiftung NRW, project funding, Transcription-Image (die Sprache der Ainu) 2012: Kunststiftung NRW, project funding, Eisflüstern 2012: Artist in residence, Changdong Seoul (TRANSFER NRW–Korea), South Korea 2013: Artist in residence, Art Space Estemp, Sao Paulo 2015: Stiftung Kunstfonds (fellowship) 2015: Artist in Residence, Hongcheon (Pink Factory), South Korea 2020: Stiftung Kunstfonds, project funding, 7 Rooms of Life 2020: Stiftung Kunstfonds, project funding, Unserdeutsch auf Papua Neu-Guinea