Thomas Grünfeld

From 1978 to 1983, Thomas Grünfeld studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart (class of Paul Uwe Dreyer). In 1986, his second exhibition at the Tanja Grunert Gallery in Cologne showed works which, influenced by Richard Artschwager, oscillate between art objects and apparent usability. The names of English gentlemen's clubs were used as titles. In 1990, at the first presentation of his animal preparations (misfits) at the Karsten Schubert Ltd. gallery in London, animal rights activists provoked a scandal, resulting in police intervention. In 1997, in the exhibition Déformation Professionnelle at the Kölnischer Kunstverein (Cologne), he combined two of his work groups (misfits and rubbers) with dresses from the summer collection '97 by Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons), which focussed on the deformation of the female body. In 2008, Grünfeld made his first attempt to bring together as many of his work groups as possible in one exhibition in the Thébaïde exhibition at Galerie Michael Janssen in Berlin. In 2013, the Museum Morsbroich in Leverkusen presented the artist's first retrospective, which then travelled 2014 to the Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa.

• Illustration — From the work group „misfits“ His work is characterised by strictly separate groups of works. The best known is that of his animal preparations (misfits), each composed of different species (since 1990). The other groups of works since 1986: trays, skirts, cushions, rubbers, eye pictures and felts.

Works 1981–2013, with a list solo exhibitions, published in: Biography Thomas Grünfeld, 2013. • 1986: Galerie Tanja Grunert, Cologne • 1989: Einleuchten; Will, Vorstel und Simul in HH (curated by Harald Szeemann), Deichtorhallen Hamburg • 1990: misfits I-VII, Karsten Schubert Ltd, London • 1990: Aperto, Venice Biennale • 1992: Humpty Dumpty's Kaleidoscope, A New Generation of German Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney • 1994: Frankenstein: Exploration in Manipulations and Surrationality, Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Toronto • 1997: Young German Artists II, Saatchi Gallery, London • 1997: Déformation Professionnelle, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne • 2003: OUTLOOK (curated by Christos M. Joachimides), Benaki Museum, Athens • 2008: Thébaïde, Galerie Michael Janssen, Berlin • 2013: Thomas Grünfeld - homey. Works from 1981 to 2013, Morsbroich Museum, Leverkusen • 2014: Thomas Grünfeld - homey. Works from 1981 to 2013, Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art, Genoa • 2025: Freaks of Nature – Thomas Grünfeld & die Faszination von Mischwesen, 11. April bis 26. Oktober 2025, Schloss Benrath, Düsseldorf