Ingo Günther is one of Germany’s most innovative and creative contemporary artists. In 1989, he discovered globes as a canvas to visualize current socio-political phenomena. Ingo uses globes as a medium for his artistic and journalistic interests, combining data and art to depict issues of global importance.
The New York-based artist was born near Hanover, Germany. He studied ethnology and cultural anthropology at Frankfurt University and art at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under world renowned video artist Nam June Paik.
Ingo’s early sculptural works with video led him towards media projects where he played a crucial role in the evaluation and interpretation of satellite data gathered from political and military crises zones. By making military and environmental information available to an international audience, the project enabled the public to influence political decision making processes. He also worked to expand free media by starting the East German television station Channel X in 1989, a few months before German unification.
Ingo’s varied works have been shown at numerous prominent art shows such as the Venice Biennale, the documenta in Kassel, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Kunsthalle Düsseldorf showed his first retrospective in 1998. Ingo received the ZKM/Siemens Media Award in 1997, the Stankowski Prize in 1998, and, in 2003, the biennial Sprengel Award in Hanover.
After teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute (1987) and guest lecturing at several European academies, Ingo became a founding professor at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne (1990-1994). He is currently a visiting professor at the Tokyo National University for Fine Arts and Music.
