Michael Kress is a conceptual artist who was born in 1964 in Munich, Germany, and lives in Hamburg. His work focuses on semiotics and language as a normative moment in the construction of a media identity.
Since 2004, Kress has been examining spatial imagination in various 1960s movies. Coming from a background in conceptual art, he uses different media, such as 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 was 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 studied Visual Communication and Fine Arts at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg with Prof. Kurd Alsleben, Prof. Stanley Brouwn, Prof. Guillaume Bijl, and Prof. B.J. Blume. Diploma and Master student of Prof. B.J. Blume.
Kress has been engaged in cultural politics for several years. He was a member of the executive committee of FRISE/Hamburg, one of the longest-existing artist-studio houses in Germany. Since 2012, he has been part of the executive committee of the Deutscher Künstlerbund (German Association of Artists). From 1996-2003, Michael Kress was a member of the board of the International Association of Fine Arts (iaa/UNESCO).
Michael Kress is artist & curator of numerous exhibitions and symposiums:
2024 I WAS, Sound and Video Instalation, Yokohama Triennale, Zoo-no-hanna Terrace, Yokohama, Japan
2023 Sonic Narratives, Ausstellung zu 48h Wilhelmsburg
2022 CONNECTIVITY TABLES II, HyCP Veddel Space, Hamburg
2022 P F S L #01, Core Art Space, Athens, GA, USA,
2021 SO CLOSE / SO FAR -#03, Videopojektion im öffentlichen Raum, Kultur-Sommer Hamburg, HyCP Veddel Space
2021 WALK BY THE OPEN WE / THE AARHUS – HAMBURG CONVERSATION HyCP Veddel Space,
2020 Connectivity Tables- The Veddel Conversations I Ausstellung (Corona Save) Schaufenster Veddel Space
2019 WAVING WAVES COMMUNITY – Pier-2 Art Center, KAOHSIUNG, TAIWAN
2018 “DIS YOURSELF”, Core ART Space, UGA, Athens, GA, USA
2017 GREEN BANK ART FESTIVAL SHANGHAI, Museum of Modern Art Shanghai
2017 YOU ARE, Projektraum Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin
2015 GWANGJU DESIGN BIENALE, Gwangju Design Center (Speech)
2015 A STORY BEHIND A STORY BEHIND A STORY
Ella Spector (Tel Aviv) and 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.
Exhibitions since 1991 several:
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.