re-kapito: Manfred Pernice

Manfred Pernice was born in 1963 in Hildesheim, Germany. He studied at the Institut für Bildende Kunst in Braunschweig from 1984 to 1987 before moving to Berlin to study at the Universität in 1993.  His sculpture and installation borrow from the utilitarian visual language of architecture, shipping containers, and commercial packaging. He juxtaposes these rough forms with text, photography and video to create fully encapsulated visual systems. These sculptures and sight specific interventions elicit the trapping of everyday life, imbuing them with a sense of the absurd and the ambiguous. Often compared to Gordon Matta-Clark, Pernice views his work on the alienation and segmentation of space in an increasingly pre-packaged world.

Solo exhibitions of Pernice's work have been organized by Musee d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1998), Portikus in Frankfurt (2000), Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (2000), Sprengel Museum Hanover (2001), Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich (2003), The Modern Institute in Glasgow (2006), and Neues Museum in Nuremberg (2008). His work has also been included in major exhibitions such as Lyon Biennale (1997), Berlin Biennale (1998), Manifesta 3 (2000), Documenta 11 (2001), Venice Biennale (2001 and 2003), Seville Biennale (2006), Skulptur-Projekte Münster (2007), and Carnegie International (2008). Pernice currently teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and lives and works in Berlin.