Newman is an experimental interdisciplinary artist using the medium of music, painting, video, drawing and literature. From 1976 to 1979 he studied music at King's College London, taking a Bachelor of Music. During this time he met the Russian poetEugene Dubnov and started to translate Russian poets, this process of translating proving important for his later work. Started writing own poems in 1979. Moved to Cologne, Germany, in 1980 to study with Mauricio Kagel at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. First public performance singing own songs in 1982. Founded chamber-punk rock bandJanet Smith in 1983; met Morton Feldman in 1984. First concerts and video showings: Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Theater am Turm, Frankfurt; Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne; Cooper Union, New York. Started to paint in 1989, which led to the two medium installations; in recent years presented paintings in a more sculptural and installed manner, cutting the canvas and rearranging the parts to form a new relationship within the painting . These installations have been presented at : Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, ; Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, ; Diözesan Museum, Cologne, Donaueschinger Musiktage; Limelight Kortrjk; Musée d'Art Moderne, Strasbourg, Arp Museum Rolandseck, Goethe-Institut Budapest. His paintings and drawings are represented in the Diözesan Museum, Cologne, Neue Museum, Nuremberg, as well as in the Neue Museum Weserburg, Bremen, and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. Since the beginning of the 80's Newman's music pieces have been performed at concerts and festivals and recorded for radio productions. These include songs, piano pieces and two piano concertos, the most recent of which Piano concerto No. 2 - Part 2, was premiered at the Donaueschinger Musiktage in 2006. He has published books of poetry and prose and issued a number of CDs. After the first phase in Cologne, he lived in Paris, London, again in Cologne and now in Berlin. From 2001 to 2002 he was professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart.
Publications
Chris Newman, Drawing Strings & writing Thing, ed. by Gerhard Theewen, Cologne: 2006,.
Chris Newman, Godded. ed. by Reiner Speck and Gerhard Theewen, Cologne: 2004,.
Chris Newman, Gespenster von Ibsen, Köln 2002 ,.
Chris Newman, The 90's and notebooks, Cologne 1999,.
Chris Newman, Recent Painting Mates. exh. cat. Olaf Stüber Gallery, Berlin 1999.
Chris Newman, Me in a No-Time State, exh. cat. Erzbischöfl. Diözesan-Museum Köln, Cologne 1996.
