Artist Profile

Hito Steyerl

Portrait of Hito Steyerl

Hito Steyerl was born in 1966 in Munich. She currently lives and works in Berlin.

 

Steyerl has studied at the Academy of Visual Arts, Tokyo and the University of Television and Film, Munich. She also completed a doctorate in philosophy at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

 

In 2025, Steyerl received the Erich Fromm Prize. In 2021, she received the Honorary B3 BEN Award in the category Art. Steyerl is the recipient of the 2019 Käthe Kollwitz Prize from Akademie der Künste in Berlin. In 2015, Steyerl was awarded the EYE Prize from the EYE Film Institute Netherlands and the Paddy & Joan Leigh Fermor Arts Fund. In 2010, she received the New:Vision Award from the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival.

 

The artist's solo exhibitions include: Mechanical Kurds, MACRO, Rome (2026); Mechanical Kurds, Villa Arson Art Center, Nice (2026); Der Menschheit ist die Kugel bei einem Ohr hinein und beim anderen herausgeflogen, MAK Contemporary, Vienna (2025); The Island, Osservatorio Fondazione Prada, Milan (2025); Hito Steyerl: Normality, HdKV, Heidelberg (2024); Leak. The end of the pipeline, Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (2024); Hito Steyerl, Kunsthalle Mannheim (2024); Mission Accomplished: Belanciege, BANK, Shanghai (2023); This is the Future, The Portland Art Museum, Portland (2023); Hito Steyerl. The City of Broken Windows, Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (2023); Hito Steyerl: Animal Spirits, Kunsthaus Graz (2022); Hito Steyerl: VR Leonardo's Submarine, Museo de la Ciudad de Korčula (2022); This is the Future, Albertinum, Dresden (2022); Hito Steyerl - A Sea of Data, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2022); Hito Steyerl: I Will Survive, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2022), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2021), and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K21, Düsseldorf (2020); Hito Steyerl: Factory of the Sun, San Jose Museum of Art (2021); Hito Steyerl, n.b.k. - Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2019); This is the Future, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2019); Hito Steyerl: Drill, Park Avenue Armory, New York (2019); Power Plants, Serpentine Galleries, London (2019); Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2019. Hito Steyerl, Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2019); The City of Broken Windows, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2017); Liquidity Inc., The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2017); Factory of the Sun, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2016); Factory of the Sun, HMKV / Dortmunder U, Dortmund (2016); Number Thirteen: Factory of the Sun, Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf (2016); Factory of the Sun, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016); The Distributed Image, LUMA Foundation, Arles (2016); Duty-Free Art, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2015); Liquidity Inc., Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2015); Too Much World, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2015); Hito Steyerl, Artists Space, New York (2015); Duty-Free Art, ARTSPACE, Auckland (2015); Concentrations 59: Mirror Stage, Dallas Museum of Art (2015); The BANK Show, Bank, Shanghai (2015); Left to Your Own Devices, KOW, Berlin (2015); How Not to Be Seen, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2014); HNTBS, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2014); Junktime, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2014); Hito Steyerl, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2014); Hito Steyerl, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2014); Circulacionismo, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2014); Hito Steyerl: Guards, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2013); In Free Fall, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2013); Adorno's Grey, Audain Gallery, Vancouver (2013); Guards, Svilova, Gothenburg (2013); Focus: Hito Steyerl, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2012); The Kiss, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (2012); Hito Steyerl, e-flux, New York (2012); Adorno's Grey, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam (2012); Hito Steyerl: Journal No.1 - An Artist's Impression, Studiengalerie 1.357, Goethe University Frankfurt (2011); Hito Steyerl: Journal No.1 - An Artist's Impression and In Free Fall, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam (2011); In Free Fall, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2010); In Free Fall, Picture This, Bristol (2010); In Free Fall, Collective, Edinburgh (2010); RICOCHET #3, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2010); Hito Steyerl, Henie Onstad Art Centre, Oslo (2010); Hito Steyerl, n.b.k. - Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2009); Der Bau. Unter uns - Dekonstruktion eines Gebäudes, Linz09 - Kulturhauptstadt Europas, Linz (2009); Hito Steyerl, P74 Gallery, Ljubljana (2009); The 1st at Moderna: Hito Steyerl, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2008); and Red Alert, Kunsthalle Winterthur (2008).

 

Selected group exhibitions and biennales include: INDEX - Biennial of Art and Technology, Braga (2026); ZOOM IN, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn (2026); New Humans: Memories of the Future, New Museum, New York (2026); EVERYTHING IS INTERACTION, Kunstfestival Begehungen, Chemnitz (2025); Universal/Remote, The National Art Center, Tokyo (2024); Shift: AI and a future community, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Stuttgart (2023); Double Vision, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); Work it Out, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg (2021); Daejeon Biennale 2020: A.I., Sunshine Misses Windows, The Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon (2020); Liquid Love, MoCA Taipei in collaboration with TheCube Project Space, Taipei (2020); … of bread, wine, cars, security and peace, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2020); May You Live in Interesting Times, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2019); Resistance, CENTRALE for Contemporary Art, Brussels (2018); Martha Rosler & Hito Steyerl: War Games, Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart (2018); Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2018); Skulptur Projekte 2017, Münster (2017); ARS17, Kiasma - The Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2017); Like a Moth to a Flame, curated by Tom Eccles, Mark Rappolt and Liam Gillick, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2017); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2016); Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905-2016, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo (2016); 9th Berlin Biennale, Berlin (2016); 56th Venice Biennale, German Pavilion, Venice (2015); Global Control and Censorship, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe (2015); 4th Dojima River Biennale, Osaka (2015); and Cut to Swipe, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014).

 

Steyerl is currently a professor for Emergent Digital Media at the Akademie für Bildende Künste, Munich. She has previously held teaching positions at several institutions including the Universität der Künste Berlin (2014-2023); KUVA Helsinki, as a visiting professor for Artistic research theory (2012-2013); the Universität der Künste Berlin, as a professor for Experimental film and video (2011); the Royal Academy of Copenhagen, as a visiting professor at the School for Conceptual art (2009-2010); Goldsmiths College London, as a convener of MA's in Cultural and Postcolonial Studies (2004-2005); and the Universität der Künste Berlin, as a visiting professor for Gender and Cultural Studies (2001-2003).

 

From 2014 to 2017, Steyerl co-founded the Research Centre for Proxy Politics at the University of Arts Berlin. The initiative led a series of workshops and in 2017, it concluded with a final conference, The Proxy and Its Politics, and the publication of Proxy Politics. Power and Subversion in a Networked Age (Archive Books, Berlin).

 

The artist's work is held in numerous collections including the Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Contemporary Art Society, London; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg; Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Magdeburg; LBBW Collection, Stuttgart; Marieluise Hessel Collection at CCS Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis; The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montréal; Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Portland Art Museum, Portland; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Store X, London; Tate, London; Ulsan Art Museum, Ulsan; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.