Ernst Caramelle

Ernst Caramelle (born 1952 in Hall in Tyrol, Austria) studied at the Universität für angewandte Kunst (University of Applied Arts) Vienna. In 1974, he was a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. He was a guest professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main 1981–1983, followed by the University of Applied Arts Vienna 1986–1990. In 1994 he became a professor at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildendenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) in Karlsruhe, where he has been rector from 2012 to 2018. Ernst Caramelle participated in the Biennale of Sydney in 1990 and the Documenta IX in Kassel in 1992.
What is reality, how can we believe what we see, and what are the conditions of art have been recurring questions in Ernst Caramelle's work since he first began exhibiting in the mid-seventies. "Art is a fake" has been his creed ever since. In his conceptually based oeuvre that spans many different media—from drawing, painting, photography, video, and wall painting, to virtually immaterial works with sunlight on paper—he explores the status of original and fake, production and reproduction, the perception of art and the context of art reception.