Gregor Schneider

Gregor Schneider, a leading visual artist, sculptor and exponent of conceptual art with existential dimensions, was born in 1969 in the city of Rheydt in North Rhine-Westphalia— which also happens to have been the home town of Nazi Germany's propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels. Schneider was interested in art from a very early age. He staged his first solo show, the darkly entitled "Teenage Depression" (Pubertäre Verstimmung), aged just sixteen at the Kontrast gallery in Mönchengladbach. Between 1989 and 1992, he studied at the Fine Art Academies of Düsseldorf, Münster and Hamburg. In the early 90s, his work began to earn recognition and to be included in exhibitions at important galleries and major museums.

As a teenager, Schneider's first job was at the cemetery in his home town. As he said a few years ago in an interview for "the Guardian": "I used to carry coffins from the church to the hole in the ground. It was a well-paid job, mainly because no one wanted to do it. The other people I worked with were an alcoholic and a disabled man".