Falko Behrendt

Falko Behrendt trained to be a factory fitter and in 1970 began to study traffic cybernetics at the Verkehrshochschule Dresden. In 1971, he switched to the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HfBK) in Dresden and studied there with Prof. Günter Horlbeck and Prof. Gerhard Kettner until 1975. After earning his degree as painter and graphic artist, Behrendt worked independently in Neubrandenburg. He realized graphic art works often in close collaboration with print workshops, creating color etchings, silkscreen prints, and lithographs.

In 1990, Behrendt obtained a working grant in Schleswig-Holstein and has lived and worked since then in Hamburg and Lübeck, winning the Graphic Art Prize of the Internationale Senefelder Stiftung for Lithography in 1999. One special characteristic of the artist’s work is his printing on found paper, whereby he integrates the marks of previous use on the paper into his accretions. He also recycles his own prints to create new works which expand, overlie, and transform the old ones. Behrendt’s passion for flying manifests itself through the frequent use of a bird’s eye perspective to create a whole environment of images. Fairy tales and landscapes also play a central role in his work. In the print work Ich selbst als 110551404310 (Myself as 110551404310) from 1980, Behrendt focussed on an identification tag from the GDR People’s Army (NVA) to comment ironically on uniforming in the military.

text: Elke Neumann, translation: Darrell Wilkins