Dieter Meier, born in 1945 in Zurich, Switzerland, is a multidisciplinary conceptual and performance artist, filmmaker, writer and musician whose artistic practice has unfolded over more than five decades. After initially studying law and economics, he turned to art in the late 1960s and quickly became associated with the European conceptual art scene. His early work consisted of street actions, performances, films and text-based projects that explored notions of time, chance, authorship and the construction of meaning. Often marked by irony and poetic absurdity, these works challenged traditional definitions of the artwork and emphasized process, documentation and the artist’s presence as integral elements. Throughout his career, Meier has consistently blurred the boundaries between visual art, performance, narrative and popular culture, a strategy that also informed his parallel success as singer and lyricist of the electronic music duo Yello.
From the 1970s onward, Meier’s artistic work has been presented in significant institutional contexts. Early solo exhibitions were held at the Kunsthaus Zürich, where his conceptual and performative works from the 1970s received critical recognition. A major retrospective of his oeuvre, Works 1969–2011 and the Yello Years, was presented at the Sammlung Falckenberg / Deichtorhallen Hamburg and later shown at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (2011–2012), marking a comprehensive reassessment of his cross-media practice. Further important solo museum exhibitions followed, including a survey at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (2013), as well as institutional presentations in Switzerland and abroad that highlighted both his early conceptual works and later film and installation projects.
Meier’s works are represented in numerous important public and institutional collections. These include the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Zurich), the Aargauer Kunsthaus, the Lenbachhaus (Munich), and the Falckenberg Collection (Hamburg). Through these holdings, his work is firmly situated within the canon of post-1960s conceptual art, reflecting his sustained influence on performance-based, media-driven and interdisciplinary artistic practices.