Salzburg, Austria, 1973.
He studied at Hochschule für Gestaltung in Linz and at the University Humboldt in Berlin.
He is a multidisciplinary creator that includes video, choreography, sculpture and photography. His work alludes, in a unique manner, to historical myths, cultural theories and psychoanalysis, specifically to the Freudian concept unheimliche, known as "that type of feeling of horror that attaches itself to known and familiar things from long ago".
His work approaches the multi-faceted cultural and social meanings of the body and its media staging. His installations are like stages, using puppets, clothes and photo and video works that the artist develops through a wide variety of techniques, adapting his style to the stories and thus creating idiosyncratic and mystical habitats.
Markus Schinwald's work is an ode to a lack of communication, where even the music that surrounds his characters is another element that distorts reality and distracts the spectator's attention so that they do not interfere in the development of the scene which has an unpredictable ending. None of the characters change their posture.
He has shown his work in numerous exhibitions, including in the Kunsthaus Bregenz, in the Műcsarnok Kunsthalle in Budapest, in the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, in the Contemporary Augarten in Vienna, in the Aspen Art Museum and in the Frankfurter Kunstverein.
More recently, Schinwald exhibited a terrarium model in the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris.
His work can be found in numerous international collections, including the Tate Modern in London, the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and in the MUMOK - Moderner Kunst Museum in Vienna.
Schinwald represented Austria in 2011 in the 54th Vienna Biennale, where he presented a tortuous labyrinth that broke away from the symmetric construction that Josef Hoffmann built in 1934.
Since 1999, Schinwald has also worked in collaboration with the dancer Oleg Soulimenko on the A Stage Matrix series, which has been represented in Perfoma 07, the Museet Museum and in the Tanquartier in Vienna.
Schinwald lives and works in Vienna and New York.
Works in the collection: