Andreas Slominski was born in Meppen, Germany, in 1959. He attended the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg, from 1983 to 1986. Since 1984, when he was struck by the sculptural quality of a vole trap, he has been known for complex variations on the animal trap as sculpture, as well as a variety of conceptual projects that probe ideas about art and its reception. In 1991, he purportedly concealed a severed human hand in a wall of the Kabinett für Aktuelle Kunst in Bremerhaven, leaving only an empty white gallery. For a 1993 show at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, the artist displayed a bicycle laden with bulging plastic bags against a gallery wall, as though a passerby had left it there. For his 1995 show at the Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld, he had a golfer hit a ball into the museum from a nearby building. At his extensive 1998 solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Zürich, Slominski executed Self-portrait with Sombrero, in which he drilled two holes high on a gallery wall and photographed himself wearing an altered sombrero (to fit the cramped space) by sticking his hand through one hole and his face in front of the other. In a solo show at the Fondazione Prada, Milan, he presented Please Call Me (2003), in which a hidden cell phone could be called and discovered by viewers. In 2006, Slominski made a radical shift in his aesthetic and process when he introduced the conventions of paint and classical relief into his body of work. However, his playful spirit was revealed by the replacement of fine marble with cheap polystyrene and of traditional historical or religious themes with saccharine, kitschy motifs and color schemes derived from Christmas holiday cards and tropical “Miranda Oranges.”

Slominski has had solo exhibitions at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (1995 and 1997); Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin (1999); Serpentine Gallery (2005); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, (2006); and Museum Bojimans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, (2007); among other venues. He has also shown widely in international group exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale (1988 and 2003), Skulptur. Projekte Münster (1997), Manifesta 2 in Luxembourg (1998), Berlin Biennale (1998), and La Biennale de Montréal (2000). In 2004, he received the Kunstpreis Aachen. He lives and works in Hamburg.