contact
lenbay(at)proton.me
Len Bay (*1994, Hamburg | they/he) is currently based in Leipzig, Germany. Since 2025 Bay is a postgraduate Meister student at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB) with Prof. Joachim Blank. 2025 Bay completed their diploma in the class for Installation and Space of Prof. Joachim Blank at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB). They studied in the class for Sculpture/Metal of Prof. Andrea Zaumseil at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle/Saale and Fine Arts at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts Kiel.
Developed in hybrid installative forms, Bay’s work combines minimalist clarity with deliberately employed elements that fluctuate between kitsch and the grotesque. Everyday life observations and intimate moments are fragmentarily merged with memories and storytelling, often autobiographical, to construct new modes of authenticity. Bay’s work emerges from long-term research and imagination processes, accompanied by continuous investigation into materiality. Alongside their profound sculptural focus, Bay seeks to allow moments of identification in their installations, following an autotheoretical approach. They aim to create productive spaces of ambiguity, allowing for the interweaving of digital and physical space, collective memory as well as personal reconstruction. As Bay examines fundamental existential themes of human relationships, proximity/distance and the ambivalence of love and belonging, their works often stand in dialogical relationship to one another, acting as retellings or continuations.
2025
Wintersalon | group | Kunstverein Meißen | Meißen
Running on empty | group | BcmA | Berlin
Kunstsammlungen Halle | duo | Lindenow_XIX | Leipzig
Academy POSITIONS | group | POSITIONS Artfair | Berlin
BBK Leipzig | group | Kulturhof Gohlis | Leipzig
Unframed/Reframed | group | Spinnerei UG 14 | Leipzig
Don‘t Break My Dezellularisiertes Schweineherz | group | Galerie KUB | Leipzig
Diploma Exhibition | duo | HGB Leipzig
Acts of Soft Defiance | group | SLUG | Leipzig
no matter what | duo | a&o Kunsthalle | Leipzig
Giving and Giving | group | class for installation and space | HGB Leipzig
2024
This exhibition has closed now... Tomorrow | group | AS/EM | Leipzig
secret garden: a lament | group | Spinnerei Werkschauhalle | Leipzig
no longer [...] not yet | group | class for installation and space | HGB Leipzig
2023
(glad) you made it | group | TTTT | HGB Leipzig
Lost and Found | group | GU11 | Köln
Guests, Hosts and Ghosts | group | IKZP | Petersburg
studio residency | Spinnerei Kombinat | Leipzig
membra(I)nes | group | 12th Annual Conference of the Gender Studies Association | HGB Leipzig & Volkspark Galerie Halle/Saale
Queer reading als membranisches Schwingen | artist talk | with Prof. Dr. Barbara Paul, Magdalena Götz & Jun.- Prof. Dr. Jenny Schrödl | by invitation of the 12th Annual Conference of the Gender Studies Association | HGB Leipzig & Burg
Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle
landing | group | class for installation and space | HGB Leipzig
nomination | scholarship by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (German Academic Scholarship Foundation)
2022
shortlist | scholarship by the Cusanuswerk Foundation
artist talk | with Nilay Şahin | by invitation of the Institute of Art, Karlsruhe University of Education | Karlsruhe
xyz | group | Orgelfabrik | Karlsruhe
juicy things | group | Volkspark Galerie | Halle/Saale
2021
shortlist | scholarship by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (German Academic Scholarship Foundation)
