Michael Schirner, managing director of the Schirner Zang Institute of Art and Media GmbH Berlin, is creative director, artist, curator, author and professor for communication design at the University of the Arts in Bremen, the Design Academy at the Centre for Art and Media Technology (ZKM) in Karlsruhe and the Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing, China.

He studied at the University of the Visual Arts in Hamburg under Max Bill, Max Bense and Bazon Brock. In 1968, when the student movement took to the streets to protest against capitalism, Schirner went into advertising and changed the world with his communication ideas. Throughout his life, the author of the book Werbung ist Kunst (Advertising is Art), has strived to break down the boundaries between applied and free art.

The creative head of the legendary GGK advertising agency in Düsseldorf, his advertising and project agency and the Institute for Art and Media is one of the most inventive and successful creative figures around today (»The Pope of advertising«). His campaigns have become a highly esteemed art from and have received awards worldwide and influenced the style of generations. Schirner is and honorary member of the Art Directors Club and a member of the Advertising Hall of Fame.

The artistic work of Michael Schirner, which is shown in international museums and galleries, includes painting, photography, media art, installations and performance.  In 2010, the House of Photography in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg presented the artist in a solo exhibition of his works from the media art series BYE BYE, which saw the further development of his well-known photographic exhibition without photos Pictures in our Minds.