Markus Schaller was born in Hof an der Saale, Germany, in 1967. At the age of 18, he moved to Berlin to become a writer. In the years 1987-88, he worked in the Tyslander Press print shop with Felix Martin Furtwängler, where he also discovered his interest in visual arts. Between 1988 and 1994, he studied under Rebecca Horn at the University of the Arts. He founded the first cooperative gallery in Berlin-Mitte in 1991. He was represented at the Venice Biennale in 1997 and the Sculpture Biennale in Vancouver in 2006. Schaller lives and works in Berlin.