Career
He has experimented with a broad practice that includes performance, interactive computer programs (the sculptural user interface), digital modeling and fabrication, animation, and video. Rees" work with digital media has been written about and illustrated in books, articles, and catalogues for exhibitions. His talk at the Rothko Chapel, Houston, Texas is also published.
Michael Rees was born in Kansas City, Missouri.
He studied at Vassar College for 2 years with the social realist painter Alton Pickens. He transferred to the Kansas City Art Institute and worked with the installation artist Dale Eldred and the ceramics sculptor Jim Leedy.
He graduated in 1982. He traveled to Germany in 1983-1984 on a Deutscher Akademischer Austauchdienst (German Academic Exchange Service) award to study with Joseph Beuys and Gunther Uecker.
In 1989 he graduated from Yale University in Sculpture where he studied with David Von Schlegal, Irwin Hauer, Vito Acconci, Alice Aycock, Frank Gehry and others
He met and worked with other artist"s at Yale including Matthew Barney, Katie Schimert, and Michael Grey and wrote an article about it Rees teaches about sculpture and digital media at William Paterson University. He has taught at Oberlin College, The Kansas City Art Institute, Washington University in Saint Louis, New York Institute of Technology, and Rutgers University. 2008 Rockefeller Grant, Media Arts Fellow of the Tribeca Film Institute.
