Franz Wanner (b.⁠ ⁠1975, Bad Tölz) is a visual artist and has been a professor at the HFBK Hamburg since spring 2026.⁠ ⁠In his research-based practice, he explores themes such as the European Union’s migration policy, the German intelligence services, and the arms industry—examining their history and current structures, as well as the impact of Nazism on the neoliberal imperative of prosperity. As Artist in Residence at the Harun Farocki Institute, he developed the exhibition Mind the Memory Gap for KINDL – Center for Contemporary Art in Berlin. In it, he exposes the dimensions of Nazi forced labor, raises for the first time the question of art museums’ complicity, and uses photographs, texts, videos, and objects to explore its impact on the present.

“Through a systematic superimposition of verifiable sources and fictional narrative layers, Franz Wanner creates images of collective cognitive dissonance and crafts analytical poetry about the pathology of willful blindness within the current German moment and its idioms.”
(Stephanie Weber, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Lenbachhaus in Munich, Presents on Hold, Hirmer, 2026)