Johann König (art dealer)

Johann König (born 22 July 1981) is a German art dealer and gallery owner.

König was born in Cologne, then West Germany. When his father, Kasper König, became director of Städelschule, the family moved to Frankfurt. Since a childhood accident at the age of eleven, König is partially blind. From the age of twelve on, he visited a boarding school in Marburg. In his youth König was mainly influenced by artists his father worked with, such as Dan Graham, On Kawara, M.C. Escher, Richard Artschwager, Joseph Beuys, and Jörg Immendorff.

In 2002, König hadn't finished school yet, he founded his gallery in Berlin, meanwhile named "KÖNIG GALERIE". To get started, his uncle provided him a seed capital of €20.000, according to other sources €15.000.

König's mother, Edda Köchl, was an actress. His father, Kasper König, is an art professor, curator, and former director of Museum Ludwig. Walther König, his paternal uncle, is an art book publisher. His older brother Leo Koenig also works as an art dealer.

The gallery's focus is on museum exhibitions. In recent years, König was repeatedly listed in ArtReview's "Power 100" list. In 2011, he won FIAC's Prix Lafayette together with Helen Marten for the solo exhibition "Take a stick and make it sharp", on the grounds that it was considered to be "the best exhibition project presented by an emerging gallery".

The gallery participates in international art fairs such as Art Basel,Frieze Art Fair, and Art Cologne.

König describes the concept of his gallery as follows: "My strategy was always to have the best artists in their respective disciplines [...]. Some galleries try to focus on a school. They have a group of certain movements, say, Leipzig painters. I always try to have the most relevant representative from each field, so to speak." Elsewhere he said: "I really try to avoid having a school."

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