Prof. Eva Grubinger
Sculpture and space lie at the centre of Eva Grubinger’s artistic practice. She transforms familiar objects, materials and cultural forms into new constellations in which historical references encounter contemporary concerns. Her works explore shifting relationships between material and meaning, individual and society, technology and nature.
Following her studies at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin, she received awards and scholarships and undertook residencies and working stays in Paris, London, New York and Los Angeles, among other places. Her work is shown internationally in museums, art institutions and biennials, and is represented in major public collections. Alongside her independent artistic work, she also regularly develops architecture-related projects and works for public space.
In parallel with her artistic practice, Eva Grubinger was Professor of Sculpture – Transmedial Space at the Kunstuniversität Linz, held interim and visiting professorships at the academies in Düsseldorf and Munich, and taught at institutions including the Royal Academy Schools in London, the School of Visual Arts in New York and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. In October 2026, she takes up the Professorship of Fine Arts and Design at KIT.
At the heart of her teaching at KIT is a ‘thinking in connections’. She understands art as a way of engaging with and making sense of the world: a means of looking at it with curiosity, investigating it, taking it apart and putting it back together in new ways. Artistic practice is intended to sharpen students’ perception and imagination and enable them to think beyond familiar solutions, bringing aesthetic, social and ecological questions together – as a catalyst for an architecture that envisages new forms of living together and a responsible approach to the environment and resources. At the same time, the professorship sees itself as a site for artistic research that seeks to develop new perspectives through interdisciplinary exchange and make its own contributions.
Selected solo exhibitions: Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki (2001), BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle (2003), Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2004), Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2007), Museum der Moderne Salzburg (2009), Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2015), Bloomberg Space, London (2016), Belvedere 21, Vienna (2019), Museumspavillon Salzburg (2024), Die Möglichkeit einer Insel, Berlin (2025), Lippische Gesellschaft für Kunst, Detmold (2026)
Selected group exhibitions: Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2002), Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2008), Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois (2009), Marrakech Biennale (2012), Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo (2013), Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2014), Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2015), Busan Biennale (2018), mumok, Vienna (2021), Malmö Konstmuseum (2025), Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing (2026)
Selected publications:
Sculpture Unlimited, Eva Grubinger, Jörg Heiser (eds.), with texts by Jennifer Allen, Manuela Ammer, Nikolaus Hirsch, Aleksandra Mir, Vivian Sky Rehberg, Jan Verwoert et al., Sternberg Press, Berlin (2011)
Decoy, with texts by Martin Hochleitner and Carson Chan, Sternberg Press, Berlin (2012)
Sculpture Unlimited II. Materiality in Times of Immateriality, Eva Grubinger, Jörg Heiser (eds.), with texts by Mark Leckey, Timotheus Vermeulen, Christiane Sauer, Jussi Parikka, Nathalie Heinich, Mark Fisher, Aleksandra Domanović et al., Sternberg Press, Berlin (2015)
‘A Chance Meeting On a Boat of a Bikini And a Cooling Tower’, in Werkstücke: Objekte zu Häusern machen, Bettina Kraus (ed.), with contributions by Michael Beutler, Alicja Kwade, Isa Melsheimer et al., Jovis Verlag, Berlin (2017)
Malady of the Infinite, with texts by Stella Rollig, Chus Martínez and Jan Verwoert, and a conversation between Severin Dünser and Eva Grubinger, Koenig Books, London (2019)
Freiheits- und Einheitsdenkmal Berlin, Jan Kleihues, Götz Kern, Eva Grubinger, wettbewerbe aktuell 8/2024, p. 2
Pagans & Peacocks, with a text by Martin Herbert, Museumspavillon Salzburg (2024)
