Stefan Kürten

Stefan Kürten was born in 1963 in Düsseldorf. After studying Philosophy and English at Heinrich Heine University, he enrolled at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and studied painting with Michael Buthe, receiving his MA in 1989.[1] He then moved to San Francisco, where he studied and taught at the San Francisco Art Institute during the early 1990s. Kürten has since taught at various institutions, such as Hochschule für Künste, Bremen (from 2002-2003), Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (2010), School of Art and Design, Alfred University (2012), and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (since 2014).[1]

Kürten's paintings depict natural and built environments or interiors while often incorporating decorative or ornamental motifs culled from wallpaper and textile design. Devoid of any human presence, Kürten's work typically showcases spaces and buildings marked by daily life and use but seemingly abandoned or vacated, in many cases allowing plants and natural life to encroach and overtake the space. However, he rejects a strictly futuristic or prophetic reading of his work; in a conversation with Lawrence R. Rinder, director of BAM/PFA, he speaks to the hauntological nature of his paintings: "It is more concerned with the present, the way we feel and experience ourselves and our environments now, and of course the past, as we access our memories be they 'true' or 'false.' The futuristic quality in my images is something from the future, but it's a future from the past, an optimism laden with bright promises and bedeviled by moral imperatives."[2]

Alongside his career in painting, Kürten also makes music under his own name and with the band Elena Farr,[3] and played guitar in the group Superbilk from 1995 to 1999.[4]

• Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
• Birmingham Museum of Art, AL
• The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
• Artothek, Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg
• Stiftung Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf
• Kunsthalle in Emden
• Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
• Knoxville Museum of Art, TN
• Kunstmuseen Krefeld
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
• Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
• Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr
• Clemens Sels Museum, Neuss
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• New York Public Library, New York
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

• Shick, Martin and Simone Scholten, Eds. Running to Stand Still: Stefan Kürten. ex cat. Stadt Backnang: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2015 ISBN 9783981358964
• Zybok, Oliver, ed. Here Comes the Night. Works on Paper 2009–2013, ex. cat. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2013 ISBN 978-3-7757-3735-7
• Hentschel, Martin. Stefan Kürten, Black Mirror, Drucke/Prints 1991-2009; Bielefeld, Kerber Verlag, 2010 ISBN 978-3866784000
• Thomas, Elizabeth. Matrix / Berkeley, A changing exhibition of Contemporary Art. University of California. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive ISBN 978-0971939783
• Hentschel, Martin, Ed. Shadowtime, ex. cat. Krefeld: Kunstmuseum Krefeld; Dublin: Royal Hibernian Academy; Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag, 2007 ISBN 978-3866780590
• Kürten, Stefan and Rebecca Solnit. Inside Out. San Francisco: Artspace Books, 2006 ISBN 978-1891273063
• Frankel, David and David Gray. Stefan Kürten: Blue days, black nights. New York: Alexander and Bonin; San Francisco: Hosfelt Gallery; Düsseldorf: Galerie Michael Cosar, Galerie Ute Parduhn, 2004
• Reese, Beate. Stefan Kürten (translated by Julia Thorson). Würzburg: Museum in Kulturspeicher, 2003
• McCormick, Carlo, Jens-Peter Koerver, Lawrence Rinder. Stefan Kürten: Every day is like Sunday. Düsseldorf: Galerie Michael Cosar, Galerie Ute Parduhn; San Francisco: Todd Hosfelt Gallery, 2001

• Official Website