Timm Ulrichs, Pioneering Conceptual Artist, is Dead at 86

German conceptual artist Timm Ulrichs has died at the age of 86. His death on April 29 in Berlin was announced by the Kunstverein Hannover, of which he was the oldest member.

Born in Berlin in 1940, Ulrichs studied architecture at the Technical University of Hanover from 1959–1966. In 1961, inspired by the “Merzkunst” (Merz art) of Hanoverian artist Kurt Schwitters, he declared himself a “total artist,” renaming his living space and studio the Werbezentrale für Totalkunst & Banalismus (Advertising agency for total art, banalism, and extemporism).

“Total Art,” he once stated, “knows no boundaries as regards to genre and encompasses diverse disciplines that serve to get to the bottom of human existence.” In keeping with this philosophy, Ulrichs’s activities included putting himself on display inside a glass case as “the first living work of art” (1961), running naked through thunderstorms holding a lightning rod (1963, 1972, 1977), spending 10 hours inside a hollowed-out boulder (1981), collecting tattoos, writing concrete poetry, and making pioneering computer and copy art.

Though his reputation was often eclipsed by those of contemporaries, Ulrichs’s works regularly anticipated artistic trends; many still seem relevant today. He is now considered one of Germany’s most influential conceptual and action artists.

Ulrichs taught sculpture at the Kunstakademie Münster from 1972 to 2005. His work was included in Documenta 6 in Kassel, Germany, in 1977 and was the subject of solo exhibitions at the Sprengel Museum Hannover and the Kunstverein Hannover in 2010. At the time of his death, Ulrichs lived in Hanover and Berlin. No information on survivors is currently available.