Johann König (gallery owner)

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Johann König (born July 22, 1981 in Cologne ) is a German gallery owner .

Johann König (2019)

Life

Johann König was born as the son of the illustrator and actress Edda Köchl-König and the art professor and curator Kasper König . His older brother Leo Koenig is an art dealer in New York , his paternal uncle the publisher and bookseller Walther König and his son Franz König the owner of Koenig Books.

When Kasper Koenig was appointed director of the Städelschule , the family moved from Cologne to Frankfurt am Main in 1988 . In an accident with exploding black powder pellets from arbitrarily broken cartridges of a starting pistol intended for sporting competitions, Johann König lost most of his eyesight in 1992 at the age of eleven. In addition, König suffered serious injuries to both hands from the explosion, which is why he had no feeling in his fingertips for years. After several operations and partial recovery, Johann König was able to complete his school days at the Blista University in Marburg with a high school diploma.

In 2002, König founded the gallery for contemporary art in Berlin. He realized exhibitions by later internationally established artists such as Tue Greenfort , Jeppe Hein , Annette Kelm , Michael Sailstorfer and Tatiana Trouvé .

The gallery had its first location on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz opposite the Volksbühne and in 2006 moved to a former industrial hall near the Martin-Gropius-Bau and the Neue Nationalgalerie .

Signature of gallery owner Johann König (October 2019)

In 2012, König and his wife Lena from the Archdiocese of Berlin leased the St. Agnes community center in Berlin-Kreuzberg for 99 years. According to the plans of the Berlin architects Brandlhuber + Emde, Burlon, the church interior was converted into a gallery space by Riegler Riewe Architects. In 2015 the KÖNIG GALERIE moved into the rooms. In 2016, Johann and Lena König as the builders, Brandlhuber + Emde, Burlon and Riegler Riewe Architects and Werner Düttmann as the original architect of St. Agnes Church, received the Berlin Architecture Prize.

With his repeatedly sensational exhibitions in the impressive rooms of St. Agnes Church, König has made his gallery one of the most important places for contemporary art in Germany. It was not for nothing that the FAZ described him as a “pop star among gallery owners” in 2019.

In 2017, König opened another gallery in a former underground car park in London. Another branch in Tokyo followed in 2019 in the MCM house in Ginza , which was opened with an exhibition by Juergen Teller .

The KÖNIG Galerie currently represents almost 40 artists, including internationally important positions such as Katharina Grosse , Jorinde Voigt , Alicja Kwade , Elmgreen & Dragset , Jeppe Hein , Norbert Bisky , Erwin Wurm and Chiharu Shiota .

The KÖNIG magazine has been published every six months since autumn 2017 and mainly discusses the artists from the gallery's own program. Under the name KÖNIG Souvenir , the gallery also sells its own line of design items, which are often brought out in close connection with current exhibitions.

In 2019, König published his biography together with Daniel Schreiber under the title "Blinder Galerist".

In March 2020, Johann König started the “10am series”, a series of live talks on Instagram with artists, art collectors and creatives from all over the world, in order to continue to provide access to art during the lockdown caused by Covid-19.

In June 2020, Johann König organized the first art fair in his gallery, which offered more than 200 works of art from the primary and secondary market for sale under the title “Fair in St. Agnes”. In its ten-day running time, it attracted 4,000 visitors.

Private

Johann König has lived in Berlin since 2002. In 2012 he married the art historian Lena König. He has two sons and two daughters.

honors and awards

Since 2009, Johann König has been featured as a gallery owner several times in the “Power 100 List” of the English magazine Art Review (2009: 88th place, 2010: 84th place, 2011: 96th place, 2012: 99th place) after he and his father and Uncle was listed at number 27 in 2005.

In the artist survey carried out by the Italian magazine Flash Art International in 2008 for the 100 most important international galleries, Johann König was ranked 14th.

In 2011, Johann König and the British artist Helen Marten received the Prix Lafayette for their individual presentation at their booth at the Paris art fair FIAC .

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anita Blasberg "We here above" in: DIE ZEIT from February 15, 2008, accessed on June 1, 2015
  2. ↑ "Booksellers are know-it-alls" in: monopol from August 19, 2014, accessed on June 1, 2015
  3. ↑ Georg Diez Königs Familie , in: DIE ZEIT of October 13, 2006, accessed on June 2, 2015
  4. ↑ Johann König: Blind gallery owner . Autobiography, Propylaen Verlag , Berlin, 1st edition, 2019. P. 44 ff.
  5. ↑ Böttinger meets: Johann König . Documentary by TV journalist Bettina Böttinger , 30 min. Produced by Encanto Film- und Fernsehproduktions GmbH, Cologne. First broadcast on WDR television on December 9, 2019
  6. ↑ Jina Khayyer: The King of Art or "The Boy is a Genius" . In: The Germans . No. 3 , 2013, p. 39-49 . Text available online at waahr.de , accessed on April 6, 2016.
  7. ^ Architekturpreis Berlin eV: Prize Winner 2016. Accessed on August 18, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Hans Riebsamen: Almost blind: The pop star among German gallery owners . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed August 18, 2020]).
  9. ↑ Berlin König Galerie opens branch in London | Monopoly. Retrieved August 18, 2020 .
  10. ^ Johann König: Dependance in Tokyo. Retrieved on August 18, 2020 (German).
  11. ↑ 'It Was a Long Day': We Spent 18 Frenzied Hours With Art Dealer Johann König as He Raced to Reopen His Berlin Gallery. May 12, 2020, Retrieved August 18, 2020 (American English).
  12. ↑ Kevin Hanschke: Fair in St. Agnes: Hybrid . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed August 19, 2020]).
  13. ↑ https://www.hr2.de/podcasts/doppelkopf/ich-finde-wichtig-dass-man-sich-mit-kunst-auseinandersetzt--galerist-johann-koenig-ueber-bedeutung-von-kunst,podcast- episode-73582.html
  14. ↑ Hans Riebsamen: Almost blind: The pop star among German gallery owners . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed August 18, 2020]).
  15. ^ "Power 100" in: Art Review, No. 36.2009 (Nov.), p. 127; No. 45.2010 (Nov.), p. 144; No. 54.2011 (Nov.), p. 152
  16. ^ "Power 100" in: Art Review, No. 58.2005 (Nov.), p. 86
  17. ^ “Artist's Choice: Top 100 Galleries” in: Flash Art International, No. 258.2008 (Jan./Feb.), P. 96, Milan: Politi
  18. ↑ FIAC - Prix Lafayette 2011 ( Memento of the original from January 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Reed Expositions France Ltd. website Retrieved February 1, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fiac.com
personal data
SURNAME King, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gallery owner
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1981
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne