Born and raised in Nuremberg, the picturesque medieval city of Nazi Rally Grounds and the Nuremberg Trials, Janus grew up torn between romanticism and political paranoia.

He studied at the AdBK Nuremberg, the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Sandberg Instituut / Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam. His work has been shown in Germany, the Netherlands, Seoul, New York City, Vienna and Istanbul, and has received the Kulturpreis Bayern, among other honours.

Through painting, sculpture and installation, he circles golden cages, traces when medicine turns to poison, when bliss turns to horror and hope to disappointment. Driven by helplessness and paranoia, he struggles to find orientation in societies corroded by social media. Caught between contradictions, his practice performs a Janus-faced tightrope walk, half research-based and half psychoanalytical, between longing and despair, idyll and dystopia.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Janus Straefer asks why.

Contact: [email protected]