Wanderers: From the Found Photo to the Biennale Prize

On 8 June 2024 at 12:30 pm we will be looking at the working methods of Michael Struck

Struck was a fellow of otte1 in 2014. He had already been developing a working method for several years in which he uses photographs from family albums, estates or junk as the starting point for his art. His pictures are characterised by exaggeration, isolation of the motifs and finding new contexts.

In 2011, Michael Struck was invited to take part in the graphic arts biennial of the Baltic Sea countries in Kaliningrad/Königsberg, an official project of Ars Baltica. Artists from Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden took part.

When he was studying the history of Kaliningrad and Königsberg during the preparatory phase of the exhibition, he remembered an image of wandering men in uniform, which he had initially not intended to paint. He decided to use it now.

The artist created a spatial installation that went beyond the standard of the exhibition. The jury could sense the uncertainty caused by Struck’s spatial design. The main prizes all went to artists who had worked with traditional graphic means. Michael Struck received the jury’s special prize.