Biographie / Grants & Prizes / Works in public Collections Exhibitions Lectures The artistic work of Dirk Dietrich Hennig (*1967) is characterized by “historical interventions” (…) For over 20 years, Hennig has been creating characters, narratives and associated works and artifacts, the “interventions in the historiography and additions to historical processes as an artistic intervention”. The list of figures he invented and documented literary, visual and performative as well as photographically documented by himself is long and at the same time diverse, ranging from the 19th century to the present day, from the composer, photographer and inventor of the camera Babám No. 1 Gustav Szathmáry (1867-1907) to the artist Jean Guillaume Ferrée (1926-1974), who worked with photographic collaged “memory images” in the Fluxus style, to the artist duo George Cup & Steve Elliott (1930-2008/1933-1986), which he staged in the style of American minimal art and light art. The connection of many of his figures is the work with the medium of photography. So it is not surprising that when Hennig examines the art forger Carl Gerhardt Rudolf, he now focuses equally on the theory of photography and the reproducibility of images, based on the assumption that a work of art that is captured through a lens is also one in its mediatized appearance changed perspective and, as a result, subject to reference. Christina Irrgang in: on art MAGAZIN, 2023 “The truly virtuoso storyteller goes by the name of Dirk Dietrich Hennig (born 1967), lives and works in Situ, and prefers to operate?as is hardly surprising?under pseudonyms. Since 1998 this conceptual artist has undertaken various "historical interventions" in an art-historical context; he thereby addresses the very public which seeks the sensational and the constantly new, the catching of whose attention represents so great a challenge. (…) Comparable to the sharp-witted stirring-up of confusion by Orson Welles who, in his famous radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" (1898/1938) or in the late, no less cynical film- essay "F for Fake" (1974), used documentarily disguised fiction to give impressive impact to the mechanisms of the respective medium, Hennig is fundamentally concerned with stagings of art. Inextricably entwined with this endeavor is a penetrating investigation with regard to the art world, to established measures of value, and to the practices of the exhibition process. (…) Hennig took great care with the meticulously arranged retrospective "George Cup & Steve Elliott." With close attention to detail, two collections were feigned whose individual items are now being presented for the first time in this exhibition?a witty commentary on what has recently once again become an influential parameter in the art world, namely that patronage which frequently goes hand in hand with eccentricity and self-stylization. The exclusivity which is purported here, along with a partial obscurity with regard to the provenance of the artifacts, suggests one thing above all?authenticity. (…) The assumption is not totally false that there may be recognized here a certain spitefulness towards all those who skim over texts fleetingly, half-heartedly, and with only a superficial interest, without reading them critically; on the other hand, this counterfeiting is so perfectly achieved that it is actually quite difficult to become mistrustful. But Hennig is concerned precisely with this aspect of doubt, of the recapitulation and relativization concerning one's own knowledge?and with the conditionalities and inadmissabilities inherent to canonized and consensual truths. (…) One only does full justice to Hennig's works, however, upon examining not only these aspects of institutional criticism, but also the various, well-thought-out components constituting an oeuvre of this type. For in spite of all rigorously conceptual orientation, practical execution most certainly plays an important role in the case of Hennig. (…) Hennig's consummate artistry lies, not only in his utilization of the mechanisms inherent to the game of art through a dazzling mastery of its rules, but also in his transformation of these insights into what is a fantastically effective dramaturgy for spinning a richly resonant tale." Naoko Kaltschmidt, Springerin, Issue 1 - 2009 Grants & Prizes 2021 NEUSTART KULTUR Work grant from the Kunstfonds, Bonn, Germany January 1 - December 31, 2021 2016 German Study Centre in Venice, Italy Federal residency grant October 1 - December 31, 2014 Villa Rosenthal, Jena Residency grant of the state of Thuringia, Germany January 05 - June 30, 2016 2014 Art Prize Paula Modersohn-Becker, Worpswede, Germany 2012 Haus der Stiftungen, Braunschweig, Germany Selected competition entry - realisation cancelt 2010 Work grant From the state of Lower Saxony, Germany January 1 - December 31, 2010 2008 Art Prize Sparda Bank Foundation Hannover, Germany Kunstfonds Bonn Work grant from the Kunstfonds, Bonn, Germany January 1 - December 31, 2008 2007 International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York City, New York, USA Residency grant from the state of Lower Saxony January 1 - December 31, 2007 2006 Work grant from the Cultural Foundation of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany 2004 Künstlerstätte Stuhr-Heiligenrode Residency grant from the state of Lower Saxony, Germany March 1, 2004 - February 1, 2005 2003 Künstlerhäuser Worpswede Residency grant from the state of Lower Saxony, Germany January 1 - December 31, 2003 Works in public Collections 2022 Sprengel Museum Hannover, Germany Project: George Cup & Steve Elliott (2007-) - George Cup & Steve Elliott, The connection between form and sound #15 - George Cup & Steve Elliott, Mailexchange, 2010 / 2011 2020 Bundeskunstsammlung, Bonn, Germany Project: Jean Guillaume Ferrée (2004-) - Jean Guillaume Ferrée, Deffailance de credules, 1970 / 2014 2016 ikob Museum for contemporary art, Eupen, Belgium Project: Jean Guillaume Ferrée (2004-) - Jean Guillaume Ferrée, La Grande Vague de Kanagawa, 1970-2015 2004 Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen Collection Artist books Project: Hinrich von Hagen (2003-) - Der Schatz im Aasee - Die ganze Wahrheit 2003 GstaadtFilm, Gstaadt, Schweiz Collection contemporary Short filmmaking