Gerhard Hofland

Horst Ademeit

Born in Cologne in 1937, Horst Ademeit was a trained craftsman who worked odd jobs and lived a significant part of his life in a low-income housing project, ill, paranoid, and immersed in legal proceedings concerning fees that he owed and complaints that he filed. Although he had attended Joseph Beuys’s open-door class at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1970, Ademeit did not find support for the work that he was producing, and subsequently ceased fine-art training. In fact, the Polaroid photographs, journals, and handwritten notes that comprise Ademeit’s first museum exhibition, curated by Udo Kittelmann and Claudia Dichter, were not conceived as artworks; they have been valued as such only since 2008, when they were brought to the attention of Galerie Susanne Zander in Cologne by the staff of the nursing home where Ademeit was then living, but from that point until his death from cancer in 2010, Ademeit embraced this categorization.

Curriculum Vitea

CV Horst Ademeit

Born in Cologne, Germany, 1937
Died in Düsseldorf, Germany, 2010
Lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany

Education

1964 Cologne Art and Craft school
1964 Textile Design, Krefeld
1970 Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf under Joseph Beuys

Selected exhibitions

2024
Making sense of life, Gerhard Hofland Galerie, Amsterdam (NL) solo

2022
Flesh Arranges Itself Differently, The Roberts Institute of Art, London (UK) group

2021
Horst Ademeit / Saioa Fischer Abaigar – Ich fordere Sie auf, das Einsteigen in Meine Wohnung zu unterlaßen!, Delmes & Zander, Cologne (GER) Duo

2018
She sees the shadows, Mostyn, Llandudno (UK) group
Deutschland Ist Keine Insel, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Bonn (GER) group

2017
The Museum of Everything, Mona – Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart (TAS) group

2016
Horst Ademeit – Leben in der Strahlenkälte, Delmes-Zander, Berlin (GER) solo
Acchrochage, Delmes & Zander, Cologne (GER) group
Revolt of the Sage, BlainSouthern, London (UK) group

2015
Under the Clouds: From Paranoia to the Digital Sublime, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (P) group
Works in Series, Delmes & Zander, Berlin (GER) group
System and Vision, David Zwirner, New York (US) group
Big Bang Data, Somerset House, London (UK) group)

2014
Horst Ademeit – Polaroids, Gebrüder Lehmann, Dresden (GER) solo

2013
HEIMsuchung, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn (GER) group
Paul Goesch – Künstler, Delmes & Zander, Cologne (GER) group
Horst Ademeit, Gebrüder Lehmann, Dresden (GER) group
Every Friend Of My Friend Is My Friend (part 2), curated by Norma Mangione Gallery at Chert, Berlin (GER) group

2012
Karl Junker, Architekt – Künstler, Delmes & Zander, Cologne (GER) group
30th Biennale São Paulo, São Paulo, (BR) group
Horst Ademeit, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago (US) solo
Tomorrow, Die Bastei, Cologne (GER) group
Horst Ademeit, Norma Mangione Gallery, Turin (IT) solo

2011
Secret Universe I – Horst Ademeit, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (GER) solo

2010
Horst Ademeit, Delmes & Zander, Cologne (GER) solo
Billy Childish/Horst Ademeit/Aubrey Mayer/Dan Miller, White Columns, New York (US) group
White Room: Horst Ademeit, White Columns, New York (US) solo

2009
3. Fotofestival Mannheim-Ludwigshafen-Heidelberg, Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, Mannheim-Ludwigshafen-Heidelberg (GER) group
Künstler der Galerie, Delmes & Zander, Cologne (GER) group
Horst Ademeit – Wohnen in der Strahlenkälte, Delmes & Zander, Cologne (GER) solo

Collections

Art Institute Chicago
Collection Bruno Decharme
Delmes & Zander

Publications

2011
‘Horst Ademeit: Secret Universe 1’ by Claudia Dichter, Udo Kittelman

2010
‘Horst Ademeit: ‘Living in the Radiant Cold’ by Nicole Delmes and Susanne Zander (red.)

2001
‘Der Fotograf der Kältestrahlen – Horst Ademeit’ by Saioa Fischer Abaigar