Tim Etchells is an artist and a writer based in the UK. He has worked in a wide variety of contexts, notably as leader of the world-renowned performance group Forced Entertainment and in collaboration with a range of visual artists, choreographers, and photographers. His work spans performance, video, photography, text projects, installation and fiction.
Etchells’ work is represented by Ebensperger (Berlin, Graz and Vienna).
In recent years Etchells has exhibited widely, with solo shows at Ebensperger (Berlin), VITRINE (London and Basel), Bloomberg SPACE (London), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver) and Kunstverein Braunschweig as well as large-scale commissions for public space at Royal Festival Hall, London (2023), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2021), and Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (2021). He has created permanent sculptural commissions for numerous locations, including Deutzer Hafen, Koln (2022), Kunstverein Braunschweig (2021) and Komuna Warsawa (2020). His work has appeared in Frieze Sculpture, London (2022 and 2018), the biennales Manifesta 7 (2008) in Rovereto, Italy, Goteborg Bienale (2009), October Salon Belgrade (2010), Aichi Trienale, Japan 2010, with Vlatka Horvat, Manifesta 9 (Parallel Projects) 2012 and as well forming part of Folkestone Triennial 2014 and The Great Exhibition of the North at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (2018).
Selected group shows include The Weight of Words, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, (2023), The Horror Show, Somerset House, London (2022), …of bread, wine, security and peace (Kunsthalle Wien, 2020), Lichtparcours Braunschweig (2020), Re-Creatures, Mattatoio, Rome (2021), Between Us, Kunsthalle Mainz (2019), Was sind die Wolken? (What Are the Clouds?) Kunstgebäude Stuttgart, (2019), The Cipher & The Frame (Cubitt Gallery, London, 2015), MirrorCity (Hayward Gallery, London, 2014), as well as Netherlands Media Art Institute (Amsterdam), MUHKA (Antwerp), Galleria Raffaella Cortese (Milan), Sparwasser HQ (Berlin), MACBA (Barcelona) and Kunsthaus Graz. His work is held in numerous institutional and private collections around the world.
Etchells’ short fiction collection Endland was originally published by Pulp Books in 1999, his Dream Dictionary (for the Modern Dreamer) was published by Duckworths in 2001, while his first novel, The Broken World, was published by Heinemann in 2008. His monograph on contemporary performance and Forced Entertainment, Certain Fragments (Routledge 1999) is widely acclaimed.Other publications include Vacuum Days (Storythings, 2012), While You Are With Us Here Tonight (LADA, 2013) and Amends, a poetry pamphlet published by Monitor Books (2023). A complete updated edition of Etchells short fiction was published as Endland Stories (And Other Stories, 2019). In 2023 Spector books in Germany published two monographs, one on Etchells’ 40 year collaborative performance project Forced Entertainment (Things That Go Through Your Mind While Falling), and the other a survey of his work in public space using neon, LED and other media (Let’s Pretend None of this Ever Happened).
In 2007 Etchells was awarded an honorary doctorate by Dartington College of Arts, in recognition of his writing for and about contemporary performance. He was Legacy: Thinker in Residence (2009-2010) at Tate Research and the Live Art Development Agency in London, and Visiting Honorary Professor, School of Arts, Roehampton University (2010-2012) and Professor of Performance at Sheffield University 2011-2012. Etchells was Artist of the City of Lisbon (2014) and won the Spalding Gray Award in 2016, awarded by a consortium of U.S. performance institutions including PS122 New York, Walker Arts Centre Minneapolis, Andy Warhol Museum Pittsburgh and On The Boards, Seattle, recognising him as a ‘fearless innovator of theatrical form’. Under Etchells’ direction Forced Entertainment won the International Ibsen Prize 2016. He won the Manchester Fiction Prize in 2019.