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Thomas Grünfeld

{{More footnotes|date=April 2025}}

{{Short description|German artist & professor}}

{{Verification|date=April 2025}}File:Thomas Grünfeld 20 14 13 Waffe II Porträt.jpg

Thomas Grünfeld (born 29 June, 1956 in Leverkusen) is a German artist. He is Professor for Sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf since 2004.[https://www.wz.de/nrw/duesseldorf/thomas-gruenfeld-lehrer-und-kuenstler_aid-26609369 Helga Meister: Thomas Grünfeld, Lehrer und Künstler (German)], 31 August 2017. Retrieved on 16 April 2025. He lives and works in Cologne and Casola in Lunigiana.

Life

From 1978 to 1983, Thomas Grünfeld studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart (class of Paul Uwe Dreyer). In 1986, his second exhibition at the Tanja Grunert Gallery in Cologne showed works which, influenced by Richard Artschwager, oscillate between art objects and apparent usability. The names of English gentlemen's clubs were used as titles.

In 1990, at the first presentation of his animal preparations (misfits) at the Karsten Schubert Ltd. gallery in London, animal rights activists provoked a scandal, resulting in police intervention. In 1997, in the exhibition Déformation Professionnelle at the Kölnischer Kunstverein (Cologne), he combined two of his work

groups (misfits and rubbers) with dresses from the summer collection '97 by Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons), which focussed on the deformation of the female body.

In 2008, Grünfeld made his first attempt to bring together as many of his work groups as possible in one exhibition in the Thébaïde exhibition at Galerie Michael Janssen in Berlin. In 2013, the Museum Morsbroich in Leverkusen presented the artist's first retrospective, which then travelled 2014 to the Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa.

Work

File:Thomas Grünfeld, misfit (Französische Bulldogge – Ziege) (2011).jpg

His work is characterised by strictly separate groups of works. The best known is that of his animal preparations (misfits), each composed of different species (since 1990). The other groups of works since 1986: trays, skirts,

cushions, rubbers, eye pictures and felts.[https://rp-online.de/kultur/thomas-gruenfelds-seltsamkeiten_aid-15484279 Bertram Müller: Thomas Grünfelds Seltsamkeiten.6 June 2013 (German).] Retrieved on 16 April 2025.

Exhibitions (selection)

Works 1981–2013, with a list solo exhibitions, published in: Biography Thomas Grünfeld, 2013. In: Thomas Grünfeld, Kettler (publisher), Museum Morsbroich Leverkusen, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce Genova, p. 249 – 251 (exhibitions), ISBN 978–3–86206–254–6. Retrieved on 18 April 2025

Collections

Prizes and awards

  • 2015: Prize of the Dieter Krieg Foundation

Literature

  • Udo Kittelmann (ed.): Déformation Professionnelle, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 1999, ISBN 3-89322-358-4.
  • Uta Grosenick (ed.): Art at the Turn of the Millenium, Taschen Verlag, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-8228-7195-8.
  • Erika Költzsch (ed.): GRÜN FELD FELT, Text: Hans Irrek, Galerie Haas AG, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-033-02534-9.
  • Hidde van Seggelen Gallery (ed.): young Steerer (junger Lenker), Text: Magnus Mills, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-9555763-2-
  • Galerie Klaus Gerrit Friese (ed.): Über, DruckVerlag Kettler, Bönen 2012, ISBN 978-3-86206-170-9
  • Fritz Emslander (ed. ): Thomas Grünfeld - Homey (accompanying exhibition catalogue of his first retrospective at Museum Morsbroich Leverkusen), Verlag Kettler, Bönen (Westphalia) 2013, ISBN 978-3-86206-254-6
  • Corbett vs. Dempsey (ed.): Almanac, Chicago 2015, ISBN 978-0-9963510-4-1

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

{{Commonscat|Thomas Grünfeld}}

  • [https://massimodecarlo.com/artists/thomas-gr%C3%BCnfeld Thomas Grünfeld at Galerie Massimo de Carlo, Milan, London, Paris, Hong Kong]
  • [https://wentrupgallery.com/artists/38-thomas-grunfeld/ Thomas Grünfeld at Galerie Wentrup, Berlin]

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Category:Living people

Category:1956 births