Kenneth Bergfeld
born 1990.
Kenneth Bergfeld's paintings center on a recurring avatar — a figure of shifting identity navigating landscapes that oscillate between parasitic and symbiotic scenarios, reality and virtuality. The avatars often appear under coverings: mushroom-like headpieces evoking both sustenance and poison, garments that conceal as much as they reveal, white eyes that could read as anonymous, ecstatic, blind, or dead. His green-skied compositions hold a metaphysical displacement reminiscent of De Chirico, while extending the inquiry into the psychological conditions of globalized consumerism and the systems — economic, ecological, somatic — that sustain or threaten the self.
"Oozing retrofuturism, the figure in Bergfeld's larger canvases ignores or retracts from the picture plane, while in the smaller busts they seem to nonchalantly lean into our personal space." – Antonia Marsh
His work has been presented at the Kölnischer Kunstverein; Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; Kunstverein Duisburg; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg; Kunstverein Leverkusen; and City SALTS, Basel.
In 2024, City SALTS, Basel, presented Neuromancer, extending Bergfeld's avatar paintings into sculpture and installation. In 2025, Jan Kaps presented his work in a two-person exhibition with Albert Leo Peil at an offsite venue on West 22nd Street, New York.
Gallery exhibitions
Institutional exhibitions
Press
Vita
Lives and works in Cologne, Germany Born 1990
Selected Solo & Duo Exhibitions
2025 Kenneth Bergfeld & Albert Leo Peil, Jan Kaps offsite at 535West 22nd St, 3rd Floor, New York
2024 Neuromancer, City SALTS, Basel (Duo) Animal, Jan Kaps, Cologne (Solo)
2022 Human Performance, Jan Kaps, Cologne (Solo)
2021 Fast Day Menu, Project Native Informant, London (Solo)
2020 A home with no hands, Art Basel Miami Beach with Project Native Informant (Solo)
2019 I, Spider, Project Native Informant, London (Solo)
2018 The Spire Pt. 1, Hospitality, Cologne (Solo) The Spire Pt. 2, Part One, Cologne (Solo)
2012 Recherche + Archiv, Project space of Galerie Max Mayer, Dusseldorf (Solo)
2011 Kunstverein Leverkusen, Leverkusen (Solo)
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Employment, Sgomento Zurigo, Zürich Black Box Theater, Clearing, New York
2023 De Profundis Oscar Wilde, L’Hotel, Paris November, Juli August September, Tokyo
2022 An Ocean Standing, LC Queisser, Tbilisi The Male Gaze: From Larry Stanton to Now, The Artist Room, London Onsen Confidential, Mujin-to Production, Tokyo
2021 Capturing Light, Ung5, Cologne
2020 Jahresgaben, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne
2019 Condo New York, New York
2018 Icons & Rituals, Pik Deutz, Cologne
2017 Jahresgaben, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne
2016 Von den Strömen der Stadt, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach The Politics of Portraiture, Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco
2015 What would you pay for a rotting whale, Galerie Max Mayer, Dusseldorf
2014 Steady State, Kunstverein Duisburg, Duisburg (cat.) Spring Exhibition, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (cat.)