Elias Wessel is a German-born artist whose conceptual work moves between photography and painting, extending into site-specific installation, moving image, and sound. His research-based practice investigates how contemporary systems—digital, political, economic—and their societal effects can be translated into images, visual structures, and material traces, while extending the historical dialogue between photography and painting. He has been based in New York City since 2008, with an additional studio presence at Stiftung Insel Hombroich / Raketenstation in Germany.
Wessel has exhibited work at 1014, New York; Palais Beauharnais, Paris; the Art Collection of the Willy-Brandt-Haus, Berlin; NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf; Art Basel, Basel; Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, among others. His works are included in public and private collections, including the Spallart Collection, Salzburg; the AXA Art Collection, Cologne; and the Art Collection of the German Bundestag, Berlin. Recent publications and contributions include Textfetzen (Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2022), Aesthetics of Conflict (Verlag Kettler, 2023), and Naming and Being: Knowledges, Identities and Cultural Politics (Routledge, 2026).