Juergen Staack (b. 1978, Doberlug-Kirchhain) is a German conceptual artist whose interdisciplinary practice operates at the intersection of photography, sound, language, and installation. Concerned with the conditions under which images, sounds, and linguistic systems are produced, transmitted, and destabilized; his work situates itself within a post-conceptual discourse that examines perception, mediation, and communication in technologically saturated societies.
Staack studied photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he was influenced by conceptual approaches to image-making associated with figures such as Thomas Ruff and Christopher Williams. Rather than treating photography as a fixed medium, he approaches it as a mutable process—one that can be translated, erased, or displaced into other sensory registers. Images in his work are frequently transformed into sound, encoded into language, or allowed to disappear altogether, shifting attention from representation to the structures that frame perception and meaning.
Since the late 2000s, Staack has developed an ongoing research-based engagement with language as a marker of individual and collective identity. He has focused in particular on rare, endangered, or marginal languages, treating them as cultural archives shaped by historical, political, and emotional forces. Through portraits, sound works, and installations, language becomes both subject and material, foregrounding questions of loss, translation, and cultural memory.
Staack is a founding member of the artist collective FEHLSTELLE, which realizes interventions in public space and extends his interest in the social dimension of artistic communication. His work often incorporates elements of chance and audience participation, encouraging active interpretation rather than fixed readings.
His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at institutions including the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Kunstverein Oldenburg, and the Kunstverein Ruhr. Recent exhibitions include UNSERDEUTSCH at Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin (2024); Untimely Resonance at Loop Alternative Art Space (2024); and Welt anschauen at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz (2024).
Staack’s work is held in public collections such as the Museum Folkwang and the Bundeskunstsammlung. He has received several awards, including the ars viva Prize, and has participated in international residencies in Tokyo and Seoul. Staack has been represented by Konrad Fischer Galerie since 2010.
Staack lives and works in Düsseldorf.