Michel Krieger was born in Obernai in 1944. Based in Strasbourg since 1976, Krieger took evening classes at the École supérieure des arts décoratifs in Strasbourg. While he sought to undertake the normal cycle of artistic education, his reception at school was considered incompatible with his situation as a differently abled person in a wheelchair. He nonetheless continued his pictorial education as an autodidact. He developed a resolutely figurative painting style (also qualified as ‘new’, ‘narrative’ or ‘critical’ figuration). The human body, although consistently absent, holds a special place in his work. ‘The theme of the body […] is never visible or materialised in my work’, Kreiger explains, ‘It is suggested by a material environment, a kind of cocoon that we secrete like a second skin, like a new limit of protection. […] In the subjects that I regularly tackle, [one always finds] this recurring decoration of everyday banality, distinguished by the absence of oblique lines, with a juxtaposition of successive planes, the absence of the ground, with time the detail of a frozen element.’
Without ever ceasing to paint, Krieger dedicated more than ten years of his life to militant political action on a comparable level to his artistic endeavours. He served as the municipal and community councillor of Strasbourg from 1989 to 2001, during which time he was concerned with the place of art in the city, and more precisely with the establishment of contemporary works of art in the public space. From 1991 to 2001, he was in charge of public commissions jointly with the mayor of Strasbourg. During this period, he initiated a method of reflection on art and the city by overseeing the work of the committees of experts tasked with the artistic design of Strasbourg’s first tram system. Two projects resulted from this position: Écrire les frontières, le Pont de l’Europe and Jardin des deux rives, the latter being inaugurated in 2004.
Since 1975, Krieger has participated in group exhibitions at the Institut français in Florence; the International Contemporary Art Fair in Paris in 1979 and 1980; in Strasbourg in 1980, 1981 and 1983; the Basel fair from 1980 to 1985; at ‘Espace Rhénan’ in Saverne in 1982 and at ‘Sélest’Art’ in 1985. After his first solo exhibition at the Institut français in Milan in 1975, Krieger’s work was shown in exhibitions at the Goethe Institut in Lille (1976), the Les Idées et les Arts gallery in Strasbourg (1977), the Icare gallery in Strasbourg (1979), the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg (1984), the AMC gallery in Mulhouse (1985), the Zimmermann gallery in Vieux-Brisach (1991) as well as, regularly — almost every two years — at the Schindler gallery in Bern and at Swiss galleries in Geneva (1981) and Lucerne (1982). He exhibited at the Hoffmann gallery in Erlangen (1984), the Museum Haus Loëwenberg in Gengenbach (1989) and in art galleries in Lahr (1988), Karlsruhe (1990) and Vieux-Brisach (1991). He also exhibited at the Nérima Museum in Tokyo and at the Darumaya-Seibu Fukui in Japan (1990 and 1991).
