Christina Kubisch

Christina Kubisch (* 1948 in Bremen, Germany) is a sound artist and composer. After studying in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, she lived in Milan until 1987, where she also studied electronic music. As a trained flautist and composer, she appeared early on with projects at the intersection of visual arts, media and music. In the 1970s, these included gender-critical performances and a series of »video concerts« in collaboration with the Italian artist Fabrizio Plessi. From the beginning of the 1980s onwards, space-related sound installations with magnetic induction and other self-developed audiovisual means followed. In the mid-1980s, she began to incorporate light as an additional medium in her works. She created large-scale installations combining visual and acoustical elements to form a new unity.

In 2003, Kubisch began working on her »Electrical Walks« series, in which attendees can listen to the electromagnetic fields of the environment during sound walks in public spaces using specially developed headphones. The »Electrical Walks« have now been realized worldwide. Since then, Kubisch has also created a comprehensive archive of electromagnetic sounds, which often serve as the basis for her compositions.

Christina Kubisch has had solo exhibitions in museums and galleries in Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America since 1974. She has taken part in numerous international festivals and group exhibitions. These include pro musica nova in Bremen 1976 and 1980, Für Augen und Ohren in Berlin 1980, Biennale di Venezia 1980, 1982 and 2021, documenta 8 in Kassel 1987, Ars Electronica in Linz 1987, 2007 and 2020, Biennale of Sydney 1990, Donaueschinger Musiktage 1993, 1997 and 2011, sonambiente in Berlin 1996 and 2006, Sonic Boom in London 2000, Sounding Spaces in Tokyo 2003, B! AS International Sound Art Exhibition in Taipei 2005, Invisible Geographies in New York 2006, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2007, Sound Art. Sound as a Medium of Art at ZKM | Karlsruhe 2012, Free Sound, The Future Lab in Osaka 2016, Soundtracks at the Museum of Modern Art San Francisco 2017, documenta 14 in Athens 2017, UNArt in Shanghai 2018, Sonic Acts in Amsterdam 2019, Time:Spans in New York 2019, Ultima Contemporary Music Festival in Oslo 2019, Biennale Musica in Venice 2021.

Her sound installations are in the permanent collections of museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Arts in San Francisco, MASS MoCA in Massachusetts, Kunsthalle Bremen, Saarland Museum Saarbrücken, FRAC Franche-Comté, Besancon and Museum Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.

Christina Kubisch has received numerous international scholarships, residencies and awards, including the Honorary Prize of the German Sound Art Award 2008, the SR-Medienkunstpreis 2009, the Karl Sczuka Prize 2016 (together with Peter Kutin and Florian Kindlinger) and in 2021 the Biennale Musica di Venezia Prize for the best world premiere and the Giga-Hertz Main Award for Electronic Music and Sound Art of the ZKM | Karlsruhe for her life's work.

After guest professorships in Paris, Oxford and Berlin, Kubisch taught as a professor of audiovisual art at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar (Saar University of Fine Arts) in Saarbrücken from 1994 to 2013, where she founded the sound art department. She has been a member of the music section of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin since 1997.

Since 1975, Kubisch has released on labels such as: Auf dem Nil, Cramps Records, EditionRZ, ampersand, semishigure, Die Schachtel, Important Records, Gruenrekorder, Tochnit Aleph, Fragment Factory, Astres d'Or, Edition DUR, Dussmann and Edition Telemark.

Christina Kubisch lives in Berlin.