Klaus vom Bruch is one of Germany's most prominent and provocative video artists. His extraordinary works engage in a powerful analysis of identity in relation to Western cultural mythology and history. This explosive, often ironic discourse is presented as a direct confrontation between the self and the theater of collective memory, which vom Bruch posits as an archive of media images - television advertising, Hollywood cinema, World War II archival films.
Subjectivity is located in a violent confluence of the spectacles of war, technology, and capital.
Vom Bruch was born in 1952 in Cologne, Germany, where he lives today. He studied with John Baldessari at the California Institute of the Arts from 1975 to 1976, then studied philosophy at the University of Cologne. His videotapes and installations have been widely exhibited internationally. Reprinted, with modifications, by permission of Electronic Arts Intermix. See also the Klaus vom Bruch home page .