Niklas Goldbach

In the artist's words:

Niklas Goldbach, born in Witten, Germany, lives and works in Berlin. After studying sociology at the University of Bielefeld and "Photography and Video" at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld, he was awarded a master's degree at the Berlin University of the Arts in 2006. In 2005, he received the Fulbright Scholarship in New York and completed the MFA program at Hunter College in New York City.

In his videos and photographs, Goldbach explores the relationship between architecture and necropolitics in modernist traditions and postmodern cities. Situated between reality and fiction, Goldbach's works use architectural concepts and elements to create ambiguous perceptions of man-made environments. He appropriates urban environments as stages to examine the relationship between subjectivity and hierarchical social structures through the lens of a globally expanding interconnectedness of these places.

In his previous video works, his often multiplied protagonists have colonized epic stages of modern architectural complexes, postmodern urban environments or supposed paradises that defy civilization, all finding their commonality as places that oscillate between utopia and dystopia.