Niklas Taleb
Liste Year
Year of Birth
Country of Birth
Presented by
2021
1986
Germany
Lucas Hirsch
There is a certain intimacy in Niklas Taleb's work. On the one hand, this comes from the thematic focus of his work: Taleb's photography follows the form and long tradition of family photography, with domestic scenes and the sometimes mysteriously empty gaze of a child looking into the camera. On the other hand, his portraits are characterized by an astonishing lack of staged performativity. His photography tends to talk about the furtive glance to the side, the point outside of what is shown, which often triggers a certain uncertainty in the viewer about the true intention or actual interest of the ...
Niklas Taleb (born 1986, Munich) was awarded the Peter Mertes Scholarship of the Bonner Kunstverein in 2020. His work was shown at the Bonner Kunstverein (2021); Kunstverein Hamburger Bahnhof, Hamburg; Neuer Essener Kunstverein; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2020) and Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middelburg (2019). His current and upcoming exhibitions include 15 Orient, New York; Peach, Rotterdam and House of Wig, Berlin (2021). Taleb lives and works in Essen.
Installation view, Dream again of better Generationenvertrag, Lucas Hirsch, Düsseldorf, 2020
Last months lived under the sway of an unspecified pandemic: high- strung, irritable, unnecessarily confused. I see myself in the hospital, otherworldly on sedatives. “I have the feeling for perhaps the first time in my life that I can simply ‚be‘. I no longer have to push myself to do anything, to prove anything. I can just sit on the bed and be.”1 Assured by the statistical certainties of living my best Leitkultur life, it’s no accident that each morning is greeted by familiar faces, family, and friends, that each evening I expire into clean, white sheets again. But again, I’m not there. I’m here, ...
