Thomas Grünfeld. 1&5—Works from 1983–2014

In 2015 the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart received the Dieter Krieg Foundation Prize in the amount of 15,000 euros. The funds are intended for the acquisition of a work of art for the museum’s collection. The museum has selected for purchase a work by Thomas Grünfeld (b. 1956 in Leverkusen), who since studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart (1978–1982) is linked with the region.

Thomas Grünfeld’s works resist being categorized in any particular genre; they consciously shift between the poles of painting and sculpture. He estranges objects, especially furniture, from their usual context, whereby he divests them of their functionality and formally reduces them – something he approaches with a fine sense of deeper meaning and irony. Since the late 1980s he has also worked with professionally prepared taxidermy animals, collaging animals parts together into seemingly realistic hybrids that he calls “misfits.”