Arnold Dreyblatt (b. New York City, 1953) is an American media artist and composer. He has been based in Berlin, Germany since 1984. Dreyblatt is the Vice-Director of the Visual Arts Section of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and was Professor of Media Art at the Muthesius Academy of Art and Design in Kiel, Germany from 2009 to 2022. He studied Media Art with Woody and Steina Vasulka and music with Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, and Alvin Lucier.
His artistic practice of the last 40 years has ranged from media installations, public art works and interactive artistic research projects. At the same time he has continued to develop his unique work in composition and music performance.
Arnold Dreyblatt's artworks often explore themes of memory and history, and his engagement with archival materials is both a method and a subject of his creative practice. His work frequently involves the manipulation of archival documents, lists, and other historical artifacts, which he recontextualizes to highlight the layers of meaning embedded within them in layered, multidimensional installations. In this way, Dreyblatt uncovers forgotten or overlooked histories, bringing them into a contemporary dialogue. He creates visual and conceptual "maps" of memory, and his work challenges viewers to think critically about the ways in which the past is recorded and how those records shape our understanding of both history and identity.
Dreyblatt has exhibited and performed in galleries, museums and public spaces such as the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art, Berlin; The Jewish Museum in New York; the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna, the Draiflessen Collection in Mettingen and Gallery e/static in Turin. Permanent public art works are on display at the Königsplatz in Munich, the HL Holocaust Center in Oslo, the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the STASI Prison Memorial in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. He has co-curated exhibitions such as “Terry Fox: Ephemeral Gestures” at the Akademy der Künste in Berlin which has toured throughout Europe.
Dreyblatt has received numerous commissions and awards including the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts in New York, the 'Förderpreis' of the Academy of Art (Akademie der Künste) in Berlin and a residency at the Center for Arts, Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.
