Thorsten Brinkmann was born in 1971 in Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia, and has lived in Hamburg since 1996. From 1994 to 1997 he studied visual communication at the Kassel Art Institute, and then continued his studies at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, first as a student of Bernhard Blume (1997-2002) and then of Franz Erhard Walther (2002-04). Brinkmann tackles the relationship between contemporary man and his past and present with fantasy and irony. This research manifests in a playful reflection on society and on our historical and artistic culture. Through surprising combinations of everyday objects, waste materials and references to history of art, the artist presents a new and ironic reading of traditional artistic genres. In his photographs, installations and videos, Thorsten Brinkmann presents, for example, the classic genre of the portrait, however, hiding the faces of the subjects with lampshades, flower vases, battered buckets or studded leather handbags.

In still lifes he materialises the depicted objects by combining ready-mades and collages, with clear reference to the creations of Dada and the Nouveaux réalistes. Thus, the artist questions the cohesion and interrelationships between genres, objects and periods of time. Brinkmann’s works have been exhibited in numerous institutions around the world: Design Museum, Gent (2020); Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (2018); Centre Photographique, Rouen (2018); Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden (2017); Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2016); Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2016/18); Rice Art Gallery, Houston (2016); Falckenberg Collection – Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2015), National Museum, Poznan (2014); Kunsthalle Bremerhaven (2013); Museo National de San Carlos, Mexico City (2012); Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (2012); Kunsthalle zu Kiel (2011); Kolbe Museum, Berlin (2010); ICP, New York (2009).

Brinkmann’s works is part of private and public collections such as the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Kunsthalle zu Kiel, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, the Museo National de San Carlos in Mexico City, the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg and the Fotomuseum Winterthur. In 2013 in Pittsburgh he rebuilt an entire house for a private collector, “La Huette Royal”. Since 2021 he has been represented in Italy exclusively by Galleria Fumagalli in Milan, which has invited him to present a selection of photographic and sculptural works at Miart – International Fair of Modern and Contemporary Art in Milan (17 – 19 September 2021). The artist is also included, as a special new proposal, in the exhibition program MY30YEARS – Coherency in Diversity, conceived by critic Lóránd Hegyi to pay homage to Annamaria Maggi’s 30-year career at the head of Galleria Fumagalli.

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GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Ambiguity of the Objects

Opening 19 May, 2022
20 May to 29 July, 2022

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Ironia – Temporalità – Déplacement

Opening 17 November, 2021
18 November, 2021 to 4 February, 2022

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