BIOGRAPHY
Julius von Bismarck’s work forces a perceptual adjustment, like going to see a mental chiropractor. His ultimate subject, in objects, images, performances, and the movement of land, is how we see the world, and in turn construct reality.
BORN
1983
LIVES AND WORKS
Berlin, Germany
AWARDS & EDUCATION
2005: Visual Communication, Berlin University of the Arts, Germany
2006: Visual Communication, Digital Class, under professor Joachim Sauter, Berlin University of the Arts, Germany
2007: MFA-Program, Hunter College New York, NY, USA
2009: Institute for Spacial Experiments, under professor Olafur Eliasson, Berlin University of the Arts, Germany
2012-13: Meisterschüler (master student) under professor Olafur Eliasson, Berlin University of the Arts, Germany
Grants, Awards and Residencies
2018: Award of the Shifting Foundation, Beverly Hills, CA, USA
2017: Junge Stadt sieht Junge Kunst, Prize of the City of Wolfsburg, Germany
2013: IBB Photography Award, IBB Atrium, Berlin, Germany
2011: Prix Ars Collide@CERN, Linz, Austria, CERN, Switzerland
2010: Beep Electronic Art Award, Madrid, Spain
2009: Prix Ars Electronica Award with the Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus, Linz, Austria
Selection of the Jury – Japan Media Arts Festival 09, Tokyo, Japan
2008: Golden Nica Award with the Image Fulgurator at Prix Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022
Landscapes of Memory, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Conference Center, Paris
When the Wind Blows, Kunsthaus Wien, Vienna, Austria
Breathless, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada
Boros Collection, Berlin, Germany
2020
Lichtsicht 7 Projektions-Triennale, Bad Rothenfelde, Germany
K60, Wilhelm Hallen, Berlin, Germany
Studio Berlin, Berghain, Berlin, Germany
Als wir verschwanden. Vier Videoarbeiten, Bündner Kunstverein, Chur, Switzerland
NEUSTADT, Emscherkunstweg, Oberhausen, Germany
Féstival Images Vevey, Switzerland
Amish Quilts meet Modern Art. Staatliches Textil- und Industriemuseum Augsburg, Germany
Seestücke – Von der Romantik bis zur klassischen Moderne, Museum Kunst der Westküste, Alkersum/Föhr, Germany
2019
Nowness Experiments: The Mesh, K11 Art Foundation, Shanghai, China
Just a bowl of cherries, 7th Thessaloniki Biennale, Experimental Center for the Arts, Thessaloniki, Greece
Festival GAMERZ 15e Édition, Aix-en-Provence, France
The Third Bank, Anozero ’19 – Bienal de Coimbra, Portugal
Das Tier in der Kunst, Wurlitzer PTC, Berlin, Germany
No mould. Sculpture in the MUSAC Collection, Museo de La Rioja, Spain
Symposium at the 58th Venice Biennale – SPACE IS THE PLACE, Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli, Venice, Italy
Elementarteile. Grundbausteine des Sprengel Museum Hannover und seiner Kunst, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Hanover, Germany
Ré-flexions. Autour des nouvelles acquisitions, FRAC Alsace, Sélestat, France
MASK. THE ART OF TRANSFORMATION, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany
Post-Water, Museo Nazionale della Montagna CAI Torino, Italy
Nature in Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow (MOCAK), Poland
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022
Whole Earth Archive, alexander levy, Berlin, Germany
2021
NEUSTADT, with Marta Dyachenko, Emscherkunstweg, Bochum, Germany
Landscape Painting, Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf, Germany
2020
Feuer mit Feuer, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany
2019
I Am Afraid, with Julian Charrière, Sies + Höke, Dusseldorf, Germany
Die Mimik der Tethys, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
2018
Immer noch der Lauf der Dinge, alexander levy, Berlin, Germany
I’m afraid I must ask you to leave, with Julian Charrière, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Germany
Public Face, with Benjamin Maus and Richard Wilhelmer, Hamburg, Germany
2017
Gewaltenteilung, Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany
Talking to Thunder, Sies + Höke, Dusseldorf, Germany
Good Weather, Marlborough Contemporary, New York, NY, USA
2016
Approximately Three Dimensions, alexander levy, Berlin, Germany
Desert Now, with Julian Charrière and Felix Kiessling, Steve Turner, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Objects in mirror might be closer than they appear, with Julian Charrière, Villa Bernasconi, Grand-Lancy, Geneva, Switzerland
2015
Landscape Painting, Marlborough Chelsea, New York, NY, USA
Tiere sind dumm und Pflanzen noch viel dümmer, Kunstverein Göttingen, Germany
2014
History Apparatus, Kunstverein Arnsberg, Germany
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Arken Museum, Ishøj, Denmark, Colección BEEP de Arte Electrónico, Spain, FRAC Alsace, Sélestat, France, Fundación Televisa, Mexico City, Mexico, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany, Musac – Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, France, Sammlung Philara, Dusseldorf, Germany, Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Hanover, Germany, Stadtgalerie Wolfsburg, Germany
RECENT PRESS
ARTnews
2017-10-02
Julius von Bismarck is a Berlin-based artist who spent his youth in the desert landscape of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Through photography and sculpture, he investigates how nature is depicted and perceived. In a recent solo show at Marlborough Contemporary in New York, he exhibited a photograph he took in Venezuela of a lightning bolt striking a palm tree in a straight line that seems too fantastical to be real. In this first edition of Catalyst, von Bismarck, speaking via Skype from Berlin, narrates what led up to that pivotal moment and describes lightning’s place in his practice.
Purple Magazine
2016-12-01
MAURIZIO CATTELAN — If you weren’t an artist, what would you be? JULIUS VON BISMARCK — Something that would make more sense in a post-apocalyptic world. Imagine the only thing you can do is art, but there are no white cubes, no collectors, and no one at all interested in art. Maybe some pavilions would still be used for shelter and some sculptures as weapons, but most of the art would be completely useless when it comes to surviving. I think engineer or drug dealer are jobs that are fun and will generate a solid income in both the pre and the post apocalyptic world.
ARTnews
2019-10-17
Last December, news outlets including Fox, ABC, and the Salt Lake Tribune reported on mysterious YouTube videos that showed two exploding rock formations in Utah’s Arches National Park. Some speculated about the scenarios’ authenticity, but the footage looked real enough that the Utah Department of Natural Resources sent staff to assess any possible damage to the landscape. When they found no resources were destroyed, however, authorities concluded that the videos were fake—answering a question posed by a local news report broadcast by Utah’s ABC 4: “Is it real vandalism or a very realistic looking hoax?” The confounding videos proved to be part of a conceptual artwork through which two Berlin-based artists—Julius von Bismarck and Julian Charrière, who previously collaborated on a site-specific performance for the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture—set out to learn how the public would react if protected natural monuments and ancient geological forms were destroyed. The idea for the project—titled I Am Afraid, I Must Ask You to Leave—was inspired in part by recent instances of cultural destruction such as the attacks against ruins in the Syrian city of Palmyra and the monumental Buddha statues of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.
