Andreas Neufert

Biography

On his father's side Neufert is related to the architect Ernst Neufert (1900–1986), to Friedrich Vollmer (1867–1923) the philologist and private teacher of Ludwig II of Bavaria, to Anna Maria Lasinsky (Freiin von Knapp) (1782–1839) the German-Polish romantic poet, and to the German-Polish Lasinsky family. On his mother's side he has German-English ancestors in the families Garrels and Russell.

Neufert studied art history, philosophy and literature at the universities of Munich, Vienna and Paris, and took his doctorate at the Witten/Herdecke University. His dissertation about the Austrian-Mexican surrealist Wolfgang Paalen is mainly concerned with the aspect of the Viennese philosophical tradition of (logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ernest Mach). It was published 1999 under the title Im Inneren des Wals at Springer-Verlag Wien/New York. 1993/94 he worked as guest curator at the Museum Moderner Kunst – Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, and 1994 as co-curator of the retrospective exhibition Wolfgang Paalen in the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City; Neufert became a regular guest-curator at the MACG, Mexiko (1994–98) and realized f.e. exhibitions like Recuerdo del Paraiso eternal, André Breton. He has extensively researched the life of Wolfgang Paalen, the surrealist artist and thinker, and recently completed a biography of him.

Neufert has three children and lives with his family in Berlin-Schöneberg and Bork am See (Brandenburg). Since 2002 he has worked as a freelance curator and author.

Selected works