Moderator: Prof. Dr. Marcus Graf
Speaker: Klaus Staeck (Graphic Artist, Publisher)
Klaus Staeck was born in 1938 in the Pulsnitz / Kamenz district near Dresden. He moved to Heidelberg, West Germany in 1956. He studied Law in Heidelberg, Hamburg and Berlin from 1957 to 1962 before taking both state exams. He was admitted to the German bar in 1969.
While pursuing his Law studies, he learned graphic design by making posters, postcards and flyers on his own. In 1965 he founded the Edition Tangente publishing house which later came to be known as Edition Staeck, representing internationally renowned artists which have always held a position and stance in the socio-political context.
Klaus Staeck started his art career by working with woodcut prints and later on moved to screen printing. He worked together with artists such as Joseph Beuys, Panamarenko, Dieter Roth, Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Daniel Spoerri, Günter Grass, Walter Jens and Heinrich Böll.
His first collaboration with Joseph Beuys was in 1968. In 1973, he became the Chairman of the " Freie Hochschule für Kreativität und interdisziplinäre Forschung (Free University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research), which he founded with Joseph Beuys.
Klaus Staeck has been visiting professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf since 1986. He was President of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Berlin Academy of Arts) from 2006 to 2015 and has been Honorary President since 2015.
He has won many awards throughout his career and was awarded the Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz - Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2007.