Thomas Zipp, Visionary Installation Artist With a Punk Sensibility, Has Died
German artist, painter, installation artist, and punk musician Thomas Zipp has died, according to an announcement by Berlin’s Galerie Barbara Thumm, which said he “passed away far too soon.” Born in 1966 in West Germany, Zipp studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt (with teachers including Thomas Bayrle) and later at London’s Slade School from 1992 to 1998, developing a cross-disciplinary practice. He became known for immersive, site-specific installations that staged psychological, institution-like environments referencing religion, medicine, politics, and history, often using a palette of umber, gray, and black and drawing on Dadaist strategies of shock and satire. His projects included the 2008 exhibition “White Dada” at London’s Alison Jacques Gallery and a 2013 Venice Biennale collateral event that transformed the Palazzo Rossini into an uncanny psychiatric hospital.
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This story was covered in Restitution Reckonings and Museums on the Brink