Robert Klümpen
Biography
Klümpen, born in 1973, studied from 1994 to 2002 at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Prof A.R. Penck and Prof Dieter Krieg, with whom he was also a master student.
His works have been presented nationally and internationally, for example at the Ludwig Forum for International Art in Aachen, the Kunsthaus Nürnberg, the Kunstverein Epinal (France), the Villa de Bank in Enschede (Netherlands), the Kolumba in Cologne and the Museum Goch. In 1999 he received a travelling scholarship from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and in 2004 a scholarship from the Centro Tedesco Di Studi Veneziani. In 2005 he was honoured with the Villa Romana Prize, Florence. His works are represented in public and private collections.
In 2003 he worked in Vienna, and in 2014 he spent a studio residency at the Cité des Arts, Paris. In 2014, Klümpen was appointed Professor of Painting/Orientation Phase at the Dresden University of Fine Arts.
In addition to catalogues published on his work, Klümpen also publishes texts himself. In 2009, for example, the volume Curriculum des Unwägbaren – II. Die Musen als Mägde: Von der Veränderung der Künste in der Schule (edited by Johannes Bilstein/Winfried Kneip) his contribution Hurra! We make art. Thoughts on the relationship between art and teachers.
2018-2022 Professor of Art Education/Painting and Graphic Practice at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle.
Robert Klümpen is regarded as one of the most interesting and distinctive painters that graduated from the Dieter Krieg class at Kunstakademie Dusseldorf. Ever since his study period Klümpen depicts scenes that can be found at any city’s periphery, such as carousels, fairgrounds, little stores, supermarkets or bars and sex shops. In his recent work one can find tunnels, street corners and parked trailers. He transfigures these familiar, but often only perceived while passing by, scenes into a space that often contains an ironic underlying promise.
CV
– 1973 born in Issum
– 1994–2000 studies at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under A.R. Penck and Dieter Krieg
– 1999 travel scholarship from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
– 2000 master class student of Dieter Krieg
– 2003 work visit to Vienna, Austria
– 2004 scholarship for Venice from Studienstiftung des Deutsche Volkes
– 2005 Villa-Romana-Preis award, Florence, Italy
– lives and works in Düsseldorf