Ingo Günther

• Name — Ingo Gunther • Birth Name — Ingo Günther • Birthplace — Bad Eilsen, Germany • Field — Art Media Art Installation art Conceptual Art New Media Art • Training — Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Goethe University Frankfurt • Works — WorldProcessor (1988-2025), Refugee Republic (1994-2017), Kanal X (1989), Anti-Feyerabend (for Paul Feyerabend) (1991-94), Hiroshima-Thank-you-Instrument (1995-2011), Diplomachine (2023) • Awards — International Siemens Media Arts Prize, Sprengel Prize, Anton Stankowski Award, Ars Viva

In 1977 Ingo Günther began studying ethnology and cultural anthropology at the Goethe University Frankfurt. From 1978 to 1983 he studied at the State Academy of Düsseldorf and in 1982 graduated as Nam June Paik's first master student. In 1983 he received the PS1 scholarship from the Kunstakademie. After brief teaching positions at the Braunschweig University of Art in 1985 and the Art Academy Münster in 1986 and the San Francisco Art Institute in 1987, From 1990 to 1994 he was a founding professor at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne; from 2001 to 2003 a professor at the Zurich University of the Arts and in 2006/07 a guest professor at the Tōkyō Geijutsu Daigaku (東京藝術大学, Tokyo University of the Arts). In 2016, he took over a project professorship at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design.

Günther's work is characterized by its interdisciplinary approach, combining art, science, journalism and technology to address contemporary global issues. His projects often involve the use of data visualization, mapping, and interactive media to engage audiences in critical discussions about the state of the world.

Gunther, working as a journalist, had visited Cambodian and Burmese refugee camps in Thailand and interned Vietnamese 'boat people' in Hong Kong and southern Thailand. Finding that his role as a journalist would not allow a proper presentation of his insights, he started Refugee Republic in 1994 as an anonymous project reframing the issues facing long term displaced populations. It was initially conceived as a covert advertising and publicity campaign for refugees, that helped change the way refugees were understood by both the public and policy makers. The project posits that refugees need to be valued in terms of their potential rather than a burden and as such refugees might benefit from exchanging methodologies and solutions extracted from their adversarial experiences. A proposed state of refugees, networked electronically would, at least statistically, rank among the top 20 nations in population size and economic prowess. The project logo was a repurposed Rolls Royce logo as a passport cover that was designed to shield a refugee's passport from easily identifying the holder's nationality.

In 1989, in the year before the reunification of Germany, he founded the first independent TV station in Eastern Europe, Kanal X (Channel X) in Leipzig, then part of East Germany. The station which began broadcasting March 1990. The project established the concept that free and independent media could be built in emerging democracies, an idea which has subsequently been acted upon by media NGOs such as Internews and others around the world.

Gunther's project, on diplomacy, premiered in December 2023 at the Kunstverein Ruhr in Essen. In an attempt to create a 'history of the aesthetics of diplomacy' to counter-weigh the telegenic appeal of war, he tells the story of exceptional moments in diplomatic history when creative and aesthetic solutions and stratagems proved pivotal. Those objects and devices were referenced as ceiling-suspended 3D-prints and projected on the gallery wall.

Several iterations of video projections on flags were shown in the 1990: "Shaheed", 1991; Anti-Feyerabend (for Paul Feyerabend), 1994; "In the Realm of the West Wind World", 1996. In 2007 Gunther was selected for Hội An which resulted in a 30 meter long hybrid map etched in marble along the Hoi-An-River, Vietnam. The Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden features Gunther's Hiroshima-Thank-You-Instrument that was originally commissioned by the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art for the 50th anniversary of dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. A light flash illuminates a darkened space every 80 second. The viewer's silhouette is temporarily frozen on a wall covered with phosphorescent paint until being erased by the next flash. The outdoor metal sculpture "How the East was One" depicting China, Korea and Japan fused into one, was installed at Kengo Kuma's Kyushu GeiBunKan near Fukuoka, Kyushu in 2013. Since 2015 his fiberoptic sculpture "Seeing Beyond the Buddha" is installed at Tochoji, one of the oldest Zen Temples in Tokyo. It channels the daylight from the outside into the temple in the shape of a Buddha.

• Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 1983 and 1985 • Venice Biennale, 1984 • documenta 8, Kassel, 1987 • P3 Art and Environment, Tokyo, 1990, 1992, 1996 and 1997 • Ars Electronica, Linz, 1991 • Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany 1992 • Centro Cultural de Belem, Lisbon, 1995 • Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, 1995 • Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1996 • Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1998 • Museum Weserburg, Bremen • De Stroom, The Hague, 1999 • Yokohama Trienniale, Japan; 2005 • Iwaki City Museum, Japan, 2009, • Taipei Biennial, 2018 [2] • Art Macao Biennale, 2021 • Pochen Biennale, 2022 • Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen, 2023/24 • Gottorf Castle, Globe of Gottorf, 2024 • Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, 2024/25 • Museo Banco de México, 2024/25 Public and corporate collections include Obayashi Corporation, Tokyo, Japan; World Economic Forum, Cologny, Switzerland; Autostadt, Germany; Town of Hoi An, Quang Nam, Vietnam; Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, and others.

Ingo Günther is recorded with the occupation multimedia artist. Recorded as a citizen of Germany.