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Sebastian Bieniek (born 24.04.1975 in Czarnowąsy, Upper Silesia/Poland) is a German conceptual artist, painter, photographer, performer, author and movie director. According to the theculturetrip.com website he's one of the "Top 5 Influential Contemporary Berlin-Based Artists".
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Early life and education
Bieniek has grown up in the Upper Silesian village Kup until he was 14. In 1989 he left Poland as a late repatriate (ger. Spätaussiedler, which means: "people with German origins that came mainly in the 80's and 90's from Poland and Russia to Germany").
In 1996 he started to study art at the HbK Braunschweig under the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović and the Swiss conceptual artist John Armleder. 1998 he changed to UdK Berlin and continued to study art in the class of the German photographer Katharina Sieverding, where he made his first short movie "Zero".
2001 he got a grand (residency) of the DFJW in Rennes/France where he spend a half year and took part in a group exhibition called "Aux voyageurs", curated by Bettina Klein. In the same year he graduated at the UdK Berlin.
2002 he started to study movie directing at the DFFB Berlin, where he made several movies. His 2007 made full lengh movie "The Gamblers" was part of the official competition of the 10th Shanghai International Film Festival. His 2008 made movie "Silvester Home Run" was part of the international short-film competition of the Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata and also shown at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Artwork
Bieniek's early works were radical performances, like "Hand Without a Body" (1999) where he made daily for 16 days a cut into his own arm, or "Born to be Boulette" (1999) where he was laying for three days in 500 kg. of row meat, or "Robbery" (1998) where he made a robbery in a Deutsche Bank as an art performance. Later his work become more and more minimalist and conceptual like the textworks (ger. Textarbeiten) from 2001.
In 2009 (after a break of seven years) he restarted with "Homeland Security", a serial of realistic conceptual paintings and others serials where he combined a painted image with a text.
2013 he continued with photography. His 2013 started photo-serial "Doublefaced" became one of the best known internet meme. It was published by many magazines and widely at social media. Later Bieniek created his own oevre around this Painted-Faces where he continued to combine different media, for example painting and drawing and photography and drawing like in the "Facination" series.
Simultaneously Bieniek continued to work on his minimalist textworks, performances and paintings. The "Perfect-Circles" and "Multiplications" serial are around 70 paintings with text made between 2013 and 2016. Also in 2008 he made a performance at the Art Forum in Berlin, 2011 in Georgia, 2013 at the Deutsche Bank KunstHalle opening and 2016 in the University Church of Marburg.
Collaborations
2013 Bieniek collaborated with the German INTRO music magazine for a photo-shooting. 2015 he made a photo-shooting for the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine. 2015 he collaborated with the French fashion designer Simon Porte Jacquemus at the Paris Fashion Week. 2016 he cooperated with the "Institute for church building and contemporary art" at the University of Marburg when being a part of the Liturgy Specifc Art art-performance serial. 2016 he also cooperated with the director and Head Curator of the MONA Museum (Australia), Olivier Varenne for his online exhibition project at collectionair.com.
Exhibitions
1999 Sebastian Bieniek made his first solo exhibition named "Natural Born Sugareaters" in the Kunsthaus Tacheles (Berlin). 2000 he participated in the "Festival of Vision" exhibition in the Hong Kong Arts Centre (Hong Kong), 2002 in the HICETNUNC exhibition in the Villa Manin (Italy). 2014 he had a solo exhibition in the Nicola von Senger Gallery (Zürich) and the Ho Gallery in Vienna. 2016 a solo exhibition in the Potemka Contemporary Art Gallery (Leipzig) colled "The Imitation of the Imitation", the Fotogalerie Friedrichshain called "The Melancholy of the Elephants" and the "Views" group show by the Bahrain Arts Society in Manama (Bahrain).
Influence
2013 Sebastian Bieniek's artwork became one of the „Top 10 Body Art Stories of 2013“ by the designboom magazine. In the same year the designcollector.net magazine selected him as one of "The Best Photographers of 2013".
In 2014 several international magazines wrote that a scene in the Marylin Monroe video of Pharrell Williams is inspired by Sebastian Bieniek's artwork.
2015 theculturetrip.com website choose Sebastian Bieniek as one of the "Top 5 Influential Contemporary Berlin-Based Artists". During the Paris Fashion Week 2015, the FASHION magazine mentioned Sebastian Bieniek's work as "Best Face Art" at the Paris Fashion Week 2015.
2015-2016 the Vogue wrote about two internatianal fashion designers who said that their work was inspired by Sebstian Bieniek (Simon Porte Jaquemus and Inês Marques). Also the Caribbean fashion designer Cecilia Devana said that her collection is inspired by the artist.
2011 Bieniek made a performance in the ARD TV-show "ES GEHT UM MEIN LEBEN". 2015 Japanese and Hong Kong TV made a documentation and interview with him. 2016 he was documented and interviewed by the Franco-German arte TV.