The German artist Gregor Schneider, who is known for his unsettling installations, has been appointed professor of sculpture at the prestigious Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He assumes the role this summer, replacing the British sculptor Tony Cragg who was in post from 2006 to 2014.
The Kunstakademie says in a statement: “His built spaces and projects have attracted much attention and provoked controversy, such as his Haus u r—for which he received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2001—the project Cube, and The Dying Room.”
Haus u r— the artist's childhood home in Rheydt, north-west Germany, which he has reconfigured since 1985—is a work in progress. In 2008, Schneider outlined plans to create a room in which a person could die (The Dying Room was eventually unveiled at the Kunstraum Innsbruck in 2011).
A retrospective of Schneider’s work is due to open later this year at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn (2 December-19 February 2017). A press statement says the show will include “the complete rooms from Haus u r.”
In 2009 Schneider was appointed professor of sculpture at the Berlin University of the Arts, and also took up a professorship in 2012 at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.
Artists such as Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter and Candida Höfer have attended the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, which was founded in 1773.
