À propos
Klaus Scherübel is an Austrian visual artist living in Montréal. His multilayered and text based practice, operating at the intersection of art and affiliated fields such as literature, theater, film, fashion, and architecture is characterized by in-depth research and the usage of an extensive range of media—spanning photography, printmaking, painting, sculpture, time-based media, and installation.
From 1986 to 1991, he worked collaboratively as an independent fashion designer and studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna under Vivienne Westwood, among others. Starting from a critical stance towards the fashion system, Scherübel’s practice elaborates and expands the traditions of conceptual art and institutional critique.
Within his work, which often takes the form of site-specific or long-term and serialized projects, he performatively adopts various functional roles—such as artist at work, editor, curator, or sponsor—to examine the historical and contemporary conditions of artistic production, presentation, and reception.
The book occupies a central place in his oeuvre as both a material object and a conceptual tool. Of particular note is his ongoing edition of Stéphane Mallarmé’s The Book (initiated in 2001). Based on the notes left by the French poet, this project has been published in several languages and serves as a reference within the field of artists' books.
Echoing the structural organization of a multi-volume publication, Scherübel has organized his practice since 2011 into "Volumes"—a classification system he applies equally to individual artworks, exhibitions, and publications.
Since 2013, he has produced permanently installed architectural sculptures dedicated to the preservation and expansion of Martin Kippenberger’s METRO-Net project.
A significant aspect of Scherübel's practice involves within recent years a critical engagement with the language of museology, specifically utilizing and subverting the historical format of the "period room." Through a strategic superimposition of photography, sculpture, and architecture, his installations translate and reconstitute historical or pictorial representations into real-size, theatrical settings.
In Cranach's Holy Productivity VOL. 28 , presented in 2024 at the Paintings Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Scherübel translated spatial and architectural representations found within a painting by Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach into physical, scale-accurate environments. Similarly, in his 2019 project Sans titre (Seconde exposition des automatistes, au 75 rue Sherbrooke Ouest, chez les Gauvreau, 1947) VOL. 26 at VOX, centre de l'image contemporaine in Montréal, he utilized a historical document—a black-and-white documentary photograph—as a structural blueprint, translating it into a three-dimensional, real-size black-and-white sculptural environment that reactivates the memory of one of Québec’s historical avant-garde exhibitions.
Scherübel has exhibited internationally since 1990. In addition to solo presentations in institutions in the Americas and Europe, his work has been featured in survey exhibitions focusing on the art practices of the 1990s, installation art, fashion, photography, and artists' books.
His works are held in the collections of the Generali Foundation at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Vienna; Art Collections of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna; EVN Collection, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria; ; MUDAM, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Québec, Québec, Canada; FRAC Haute-Normandie, Sotteville-lès-Rouen, France; FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier, France; among others.
His artists’ books are held in numerous special collections and are referenced in several antalogies.