Volker Schreiner

Year of birth, place
1957, Isingerode, Germany
Role at the ZKM
in the collection
Biography

Volker Schreiner studied (1977-83) at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig. He has received numerous prizes and awards for his work, including a grant from the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (1988), another from the Land of Lower Saxony (1993), and the 'Elisabeth-Schneider-Preis' (1994). He has taught at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe (1993-94) and at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig. He lives in Braunschweig. 

In the early 1980s, Schreiner (now established as a video and performance artist) exhibited series of abstract sculptures. Since 1988, however, he has worked above all with video. In addition to video tapes, he has produced video sculptures combining the constructive dimensions of sculpture with the possibilities specific of video. Central to Schreiner's work are rhythmic structures and what Schreiner has himself called the process of "connecting the apparent with the real". Images and the sounds accompanying them are separated and then re-combined in an emphatically rhythmic fashion. Schreiner's games with virtual spaciality within the monitor are also extended, in his large installations, to the space between the monitors. In expansive projections, produced since the mid-1990s (often in collaboration with Christoph Giradet), ceiling, walls and floor are concentrated into a single continuous ambience, in which passages and transitions play a crucial part. 

Individual exhibitions (selection)
 
1992 »Versatz«, Eisfabrik - foro artistico, Hannover
1993 »Roundabout«, Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur, Hannover
1994 »Grounded Sky«, Schloss Celle; »Elisabeth-Schneider-Preis 1994«, Elisabeth-Schneider-Stiftung, Freiburg
1995 »Frühlingserwachen«, Eisfabrik - foro artistico, Hannover; »Retake«, Kunstraum Wuppertal
1996 »Subsoil«, Eisfabrik- foro artistico, Hannover; »Seasaw«, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Video-Forum, Berlin
 
Group exhibitions and participation in festivals (selection)
 
1990 »4. Marler Video-Kunst-Preis«, Museum Folkwang, Essen; »5th International Video and TV Festival«, Montbéliard
1991 »4th Fukui International Video Biennale«, Fukui City; »Neue Deutsche Medienkunst«, Moderna Museet, Stockholm; »37. Internationale Kurzfilmtage«, Oberhausen; »AVE-Festival«, Arnheim; »4. VideoFest«, Medienkooperative, Berlin
1992 »Interferenz«, Kunstverein Wolfenbüttel; »European Media Art Festival«, Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche, Osnabrück
1993 »Preisträger des 5. Marler Video-Kunst-Preises«, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten, Marl; »MultiMediale 3«, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe
1994 »German Video Art«, AR/GE Kunst, Museum-Galerie Bozen, Vorarlberger; Kunstverein, Bregenz
1995 »Deutsch-Japanisches Festival der Medienkunst«, Kyoto
1997 »Video-Fest Retrospektive«, transmedia, Berlin; »Heidelberger Film- und Videotage«, Heidelberg; »5. Verdener Kurzfilm-Festival«, Verden; »Sound Basis Visual Arts Festival«, Breslau; »43. Internationale Kurzfilmtage«, Oberhausen

[Frauke Syamken, 1997]