Background
Joachim Bandau was born on April 18, 1936 in Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
Joachim Bandau studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1957 to 1961.
From 1988 to 2001 Bandau was a professor of sculpture at the Kunstakademie Münster.
educator graphic artist painter sculptor
Joachim Bandau was born on April 18, 1936 in Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
Joachim Bandau studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1957 to 1961.
Joachim Bandau began creating a series of mobile sculptures made from fiberglass since the late 1960’s. These futurist-organic figures resembled a hybrid of man, machine, and design-object and culminated in his "Kabinen-Mobile" which he presented at documenta 6 in 1977.
Bandau began painting black watercolors in 1983. For his black watercolor works, he applies washes of strongly diluted paint in several layers onto heavy handmade-paper. Each individual layer is transparent and nearly invisible. These Black Watercolors suggest incessant motion from within to without, between withdrawal and spatial control. The complexity of perception leads to the ambiguity of the image. Shades of grey watercolor evoke photographic decomposition of movement, as if each were capturing successive movements of one block of color.
From 1988 to 2001 Bandau was a professor of sculpture at the Kunstakademie Münster.
Bandau has had numerous solo exhibitions, including shows at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, M HKA in Antwerp, SculptureCenter in New York, Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, Haus der Kunst in Munich, Städtische Kunsthalle in Mannheim, Fine Art Museum in Budapest, De Young Museum in San Francisco, and Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, among others. In 2018 he had the solo shows at the Sebastian Fath Contemporary in Mannheim, Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco and Super Dakota in Brussels.
Currently, Joachim Bandau lives in Aachen and Stäfa, Switzerland.
In 1966, Joachim Bandau was one of the founders of the artists group K66.
Quotes from others about the person
Kenneth Baker: "No one unfamiliar with watercolor should underestimate the feats of control that pieces such as this record. Just the right decisions regarding tools, materials and timing have to be sustained to achieve the look of effortless perfection Bandau gets."
Dr. Katja Blomberg: "Bandau stands by himself. As a sculptor he recreates shadows, objects, walls, rooms, floors, windows, gray on gray, with transparence and peace, as though from the distance of a remote state of consciousness."