Julius von Bismarck

Julius von Bismarck, born 1983 in Breisach am Rhein, Germany, grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He currently lives and works in Berlin and in Switzerland.

The artist studied at the Berlin University of the Arts (2005-2013) and the Hunter College, New York (2007). Julius von Bismarck received the Award of the Shifting Foundation, Beverly Hills (2018); IBB Photography Award, IBB Atrium, Berllin (2013); and Prix Ars Electronica Award, Linz (2009), among others.

Spanning a wide range of forms-from kinetic sculptures and photographs to video installations and landscapes-Julius von Bismarck’s work is produced in an intense engagement with the world and the physical conditions that determine existence on the planet. His work treats the natural world as a laboratory, a studio or sometimes even as a kind of canvas. Employing optical illusion, elaborate tromp l’oeil or incongruous action, his works can confound viewers, allowing them to experience the world and their place in it from a reoriented perspective. At the core of his practice is the question of how the notion of Nature was constructed: specifically, how the conceptual split stipulated by man from his surroundings, through naming, classifying and creating systems, has gone hand in hand with control and domination of the environment, to increasingly disastrous effects, not just for nature itself but as a consequence of wider notions of humanity’s sovereignty, also for the lives of other beings, human and non-human.