Born in Magdeburg in 1980, he studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin, the Institute for Spatial Experimentation, and the California Institute of the Arts. His work has been presented in national and international institutions and exhibitions, including the MSU Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb), the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, the New National Gallery (Berlin), the Imperial War Museum (London), the Academy of Fine Arts (Berlin), the Kunsthalle Mannheim, and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAK) in Krakow. Fabian Knecht is a member of the Senegalese-Berlin artist group Dry Ocean.
Fabian Knecht’s works are anti-authoritarian interventions into reality. Progressive and nonconformist, they confront an increasingly shrinking world defined by rules and existing structures. In this way, they disrupt patterns of behavior and perception, attack artistic concepts and power structures, and critically reflect on social relations and norms through sharply contrasting images. Knecht is interested in the direct experience of art, which cuts across the everyday (Freisetzung [Liberation], 2014) and rejects the romanticization of the world (Isolation [Isolation], 2015–; Spartacus [Spartacus], 2010). His works are sometimes so direct and striking that they are not always recognizable as works of art (Entfachung [Ignition], 2013; Nothing is bad without something good [Initialization], 2010; Befreiung [Liberation], 2010; Gentrifizierung [Gentrification], 2018; Erwartende [Waiting], 2019). Intuitive, provocative, and existential, Knecht’s work attributes to art a significant, liberating social function. His intermedia works encompass actions, performances, installations, and photography.
Since 2006, Knecht’s practice has been strongly influenced by his numerous trips to Ukraine. After the Russian invasion in 2022, Knecht joined the Ukrainian resistance movement and has since traveled to the country several times as a volunteer. He initially traveled to support friends he met during the Isolation (Riverbed) project in 2016, who had now joined the army. Shortly thereafter, he began collaborating with the Kyiv-based aid organization Livyj Bereh and its regional partners in Izyum and Odessa. The wartime experiences he gained during humanitarian work have been reflected in his artistic practice, culminating in the series Der Weg des Größten Widerstandes (The Line of Greatest Resistance). Knecht’s work funds humanitarian projects.
The artist has been involved in the war since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. He regularly travels there, providing support, and supplies the military, sometimes exchanging them for camouflage nets made by amateur women. Because they are made from old clothes, their color schemes don’t fully meet military requirements. Thanks to these exchanges, Fabian has collected numerous camouflage nets. He uses them to symbolically cover buildings, thus disrupting our comfortable sense of security.
