Ingo Günther grew up in Germany. Traveled to Northern Africa, North and Central America and Asia before studying Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at Frankfurt University (1977) and sculpture and media at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Schwegler, Uecker, Paik, MA 1982, postgrad year 1983). German National Academic Foundation Scholarship; P.S.1 residency, New York; DAAD scholarship, and Kunstfonds grant.
Early sculptural media works and journalistic projects were pursued in TV, print, and the art field. Played a pioneering and crucial role in the evaluation and interpretation of satellite data for internationally print media and TV news. 1987 documenta 8 installation K4 (C31) (Command Control Communication and Intelligence). Worked as artist, correspondent and author for German and Japanese news media. 1989 began Worldprocessor project and founded the first independent TV station in Eastern Europe (Channel X, Leipzig). Research in Cambodian, Burmese and Laotian refugee camps inspired the Refugee Republic project (since 1990).
1990 - 94 founding professor at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. 2001 - 03 professor for media economics at ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts). 2006 - 07 visiting professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku).
Works shown, among other public venues, at: Nationalgalerie Berlin, 1983 and 1985; Venice Biennale, 1984; documenta, Kassel, 1987; P3 Art and Environment, Tokyo, 1990, 1992, 1996, and 1997; Ars Electronica, Linz, 1991; Centro Cultural de Belem, Lisbon, 1995; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, 1995; Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1996; Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen, 1999; Stroom, The Hague, 1999; V2 Rotterdam, 2003; Yokohama Trienniale, Japan; Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen, 2005; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, 2006; Espacio Fundacion Telefonica, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2007; Iwaki City Museum, Japan, 2009; Kumu Kunstimuuseum, Tallinn, Estonia, 2011; Museum of Emerging Sciences and and Innovation, Tokyo, Japan, 2012-14; CCCA, Barcelona, 2014; Somerset House, London, 2015; Kunstverein Hannover, 2015; DOX, Prague, 2017; Hood Museum, at Dartmouth, NH, 2017; 11th Taipei Biennale, 2018; Kunsthaus Zurich and Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria, 2019; Macao Biennale, 2021; Anchorage Museum, 2022.
Early retrospective at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1998; Bremen, Germany and Stroom, The Hague, NL in 1999.
Public and corporate collections include Obayashi Corporation, Tokyo, Japan; World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland; Volkswagen Corporation, Germany; Town of Hoi An, Quang Nam, Vietnam; Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan; Aichi Prefectural Conference Center; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, IFC/World Bank, Washington DC; Kyushu Prefecture, Japan, and others.
1988 Kunstpreis Glockengasse (Cologne) and Preis des Kulturkreises des Bundes der Deutschen Industrie( Art award, German Industrial Association). In 1996 Stankowski Award, 1997, ZKM/Siemens Medienkunstpreis (ZKM Media Art Award). Invitation to and exhibition at World Economic Forum’s annual meeting (2000) in Davos, Switzerland. 2003 Sprengel Prize of the Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany.
Recently he was a Professor at the Karlsruhe University of Art and Design. He is an adviser to New York Hall of Science and the Museum of Emerging Sciences and Innovation, Tokyo, Japan; researcher at Indiana University at Bloomington; and from 2010 to 2015 he was an adviser and artistic director of Tochoji, one of Tokyo’s oldest Zen Temple. Ingo Günther is a frequent contributor to Foresight Magazine, Tokyo.
.