Franz Ackermann

German, b. 1963 in Neumarkt St Veit, based in Berlin.

Franz Ackermann makes exuberant paintings and installations centered on the themes of travel, tourism, globalization and urbanism. Mental Maps, his first major series, was produced during a stay in Hong Kong, combining the factual precision of traditional street maps with his own interpretation of the local environment. His work frequently deals with the two faces of international tourism – its glamourous, consumption-centered side but also the detritus, architectural scarring and garbage that it leaves behind. The places he depicts have a generic quality and yet they look strangely familiar: non-places where the traveler’s desires replace local culture.

Franz Ackermann studied in the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich and in the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Hamburg.

Selected recent exhibitions

Franz Ackermann, New Work, Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France, 2016

Mental Maps, Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2014

Walking South, Faena Arts Center, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2012

Transit: Again / Always / Forever, Dirimart, Istanbul, Turkey, 2012

Wait, White Cube, London, UK, 2010

Franz Ackermann, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, 2009

Main illustration: Franz Ackermann, A special friend, till the end, 2014 (detail). Courtesy the artist and Meyer Riegger.