Michael Kress is a conceptual artist born 1964 in Munich, Germany, and lives in Hamburg. His work focuses on semiotics and language as normative moments in constructing a media identity.
Since 2004, Kress has examined spatial imagination in various 1960s movies. He uses different media from a conceptual art background, 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.
For several years, Kress has been engaged in cultural politics. From 2012 to 2018, he was a member of the executive committee of FRISE/Hamburg, one of the longest-standing artist studios in Germany. From 2012 to 2021, he was a member of the executive committee of the Deutscher Künstlerbund (German Association of Artists). From 1996-2003, Michael Kress was a member of the International Association of Fine Arts (IAA/UNESCO) board.
Michael Kress is an artist & curator of numerous exhibitions and Symposiums:
2023 MEAN SEA LEVEL – LEARNING TO READ THE STREAM, Hyper Cultural Passengers, Hamburg
2022 PFSL01, Online Exhibition and Summit, UGA, Athens/GA, USA >
2022 ART AS WORLDWIDE BRANDS, Online Speech at CAA – China, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou/China
2021 SO CLOSE / SO FAR -#03, Kultur Sommer Hamburg, HyCP Veddel Space, Hamburg
2021 WALK BY THE OPEN WE /THE AARHUS – HAMBURG CONVERSATION, HyCP Veddel Space, Hamburg
2020 CONNECTIVITY TABLES– The Veddel Conversations, December 2020, HyCP Veddel Space, Hamburg
2019 GRAB YOUR WORLD – Performance, Yokohama,
2019 Kick-Off „WeTrees 2020 Festival“ ( 2021 post pointed),
2018 Migration of Imagination / Chicago – Hamburg Artists Conversations
An Exchange with Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago
2018 GATHERING ANGLES – Conference on Artistic explorations of the globalized main routes
2017 LINKED ANGLES – Artist Conversations on Cultural Emancipation
with Anish Ahluwalia (India), Andrea Becker-Weimann (Ger), and Anke Mellin (Ger)
2016 THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME – Measuring hyperlinks on passages to similarities
Jaime Ibanez (Groningen/NL), Klaske Oenema (Groningen/NL), Tim Schwartz (Los Angeles/USA), Reham Sharbaji (Amman/Jordan)
2016-18 HYPER CULTURAL PASSENGERS
A platform for artists and thinkers/ international exchange
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 21ST CENTURY / FRISE Hamburg
2009 THE ARTIST 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 and presentations since 1991 / several:
2024 hundert зуу, Red Ger Gallery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
2024 I WAS, Sound&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
2021 SO CLOSE / SO FAR -#03, Kultur Sommer Hamburg, HyCP Veddel Space, Hamburg
2020 CONNECTIVITY TABLES– The Veddel Conversations, HyCP Veddel Space, Hamburg
2019 GRAB YOUR WORLD – Performance with students in Yokohama, Kick-Off „WeTrees 2020 Festival“ (2021), Zounohana Terrace, Yokohama, Japan
2018 DISYOURSELF, Core Project Space, Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, USA
2017 YOU ARE Projektraum Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin, (Speech)
2017 GREEN BANK ART FESTIVAL SHANGHAI, Museum of Modern Art Shanghai (Speech)
2015 GWANGJU DESIGN BIENNALE, Gwangju Design Center (Speech)
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.
Teaching in Art and Design
Since 2020 Visiting Professor of Exhibition Planning and Design College of Zhejiang Wanli University, Ningbo, China
2018 Visiting Professor für Freie Kunst, Lamar Dodd School of Art University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
Since 2018 Visiting Lecturer for Environmental Design and Bachelor Coaching at Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China
Since 2013 Lecturer in Audio/Video Design (BA) and Environmental Design (BA), Visual Aesthetics and Semiotics (Master),
Brand University Hamburg
2004 -16 Diplom Coach and lecturer for Creative-Technics and Audio/Video Design, Design Factory International, Hamburg
1994-96 Tutor/Assistant von Prof. B.J. Blume, Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg
