Michael Kress

Michael Kress„ “Lobby Card Aqaba II“, 2009, Digital Montage, ink-print on baryt-paper, 60 x 40 cm,
© VG Bildkunst, from “With Lawrence and Lennon and The Four Musketeers through the desert to the movies” / 2004 -2009

MEMBER OF THE HYCP CREW

Michael Kress, is a conceptual artist, born in 1964, in Munich, Germany, living in Hamburg. The focus of his work is semiotics and language as a normative moment in the construction of a media-identity.

Since 2004 Kress has been examining spatial imagination in various movies from the 1960’s. Coming from a background of conceptual art, he uses different media, like video, drawing, writing, sound and photography in his examinations.

His most recent project is about a region in southern Spain, that was the site of Europe’s worst nuclear accident. In this project Kress tries to show both the beauty of Andalusia and the danger hidden in the soil, which is a relic of the cold war. In 2012 Michael Kress has been invited to the Funasaka Biennale where he produced a conversation video performance with the curator Tatsuya Fuji based on a song by Tom Waits. 2014 Michael Kress showed his latest artist conversation project “Adore – Artists are Fans/Fans are Artists” in Yokohama/Japan at ZOU-NO-HANA Terrace.

In 2015 Michael initiated the network project  Hyper Cultural Passengers. This cooperation of artists, philosophers and other cultural activists questions the myth of the autonomous, and thereby self-sufficient, subject and proposes instead the figure of the hypercultural passenger.

Michael Kress/“The Fields Are Soft And Green (The Innocence of the Artist)”, Nishinomiya-Funasaka Biennale 2012, Japan, 2012, 1080p Video. Video Still showing the artist holding a night watch for the curator.
Michael Kress/“The Fields Are Soft And Green (The Innocence of the Artist)”,Nishinomiya-Funasaka Biennale 2012, Japan, 2012, 1080p Video. Video Still showing the artist holding a night watch for the curator. © VG Bildkunst

 

ADORE / FANS ARE ARTISTS – ARTISTS ARE FANS, 2014 Risa Sato/artist, performing One Hit (To The Body) by The Rolling Stones, Zounohana Terrace, Yokohama, Japan, Five canal video installation, a cooperation with 35 Yokohama based artists / © VG Bildkunst

Michael Kress studied Visual Communication and Fine Arts at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg with: Prof. Kurd Alsleben, Prof. Stanley Brouwn, Prof. Gauillaume Bijl and Prof. B.J. Blume. Diploma and master student of Prof. B.J. Blume.

ADORE / FANS ARE ARTISTS – ARTISTS ARE FANS, 2014 Risa Sato/artist, performing One Hit (To The Body) by The Rolling Stones, Zounohana Terrace, Yokohama, Japan, Five canal video installation, a cooperation with 35 Yokohama based artists
ADORE / FANS ARE ARTISTS – ARTISTS ARE FANS, 2014 Risa Sato/artist, performing One Hit (To The Body) by The Rolling Stones, Zounohana Terrace, Yokohama, Japan, Five canal video installation, a cooperation with 35 Yokohama based artists / © VG Bildkunst

For several years Kress is being engaged in cultural politics. He has been member of the executive committee of FRISE/Hamburg, one of the longest existing artist-studio-houses in Germany. Since 2012, he is part of the executive committee the Deutscher Künstlerbund (German Association of Artists). From 1996-2003 Michael Kress had been member of the board of the International Association of Fine Arts (iaa/UNESCO). Michael Kress is artist & curator of numerous exhibitions and symposiums:

2015  A Story Behind a Story Behind a Story
Ella Spector (Tel Aviv)und Belit Sağ (Istanbul) with students of Gymnasiums Blankenese

2014  DE_SCRIPT_ION – Artist Conversations on Hanne Darboven
with Liang Yue (Shanghai) , Katja Lell (Zürich), Yin Yi (Shanghai) and Carsten Berger (Hamburg) FRISE Hamburg

2013  Querung des Gleichers/ artists journeys in the 21th century / FRISE Hamburg

2009 The Artsit Feeling – artistic networks” in cooperation IGBK / IAA UNESCO and Künstlerhaus Hamburg

2001 Artist’s Voice – The own / the alien, Symposium, Berlin Academy of Arts

1999 Artainment” symposium, Sprengel Museum Hannover.


A choice of Exhibitions since 1991:

2014 ADORE / FANS ARE ARTISTS – ARTISTS ARE FANS
Yokohama Triennale 2014, Zounohana Terrace, Yokohama, Japan

2012 “The Fields Are Soft And Green (The Innocence of the Artist)”, Nishinomiya-Funasaka Biennale 2012, Japan

2010 „Art and conversation“ ZKM /center for art and media, Karlsruhe

2009 “Yo Aqaba – With Lawrence and Lennon and The Four Musketeers through the desert to the movies,” Foundation Landdrostei, Pinneberg.

2009 “Artists Eat World Banks”, Kunstverein Loitz.

2004 “Sommerfrische”, Kunsthalle Hamburg.