Franz Ackermann is a german artist who makes exuberant paintings and installations centred on themes of travel, tourism, globalisation and urbanism.
His cartoonish abstractions are built up from individual components comprising paintings, drawings, photographs, wall drawings and sculptural, billboard-like constructions. His work frequently deals with the double side of tourism – the glamour, speed and consumption of international travel but also the detritus, architectural scarring and garbage that it leaves behind, and his installations often take on the appearance of strange advertisements for a global tourism industry run amok.
He has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including the 2003 Venice Biennale, “Drawing Now: 8 Propositions” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, “Hybrids” at Tate Liverpool, “Global Navigation System” at Pace le aloghy de Tokyo in Paris and “Seasons in the Sun” at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.