Armando was born Herman Dirk van Dodeweerd in Amsterdam in 1929. From 1949 to 1954 he studied art history and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. In 1979 he came to West Berlin on a DAAD scholarship. In 1982 he participated in documenta 7 and represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale in 1984. From 1996 he was a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. Queen Beatrix awarded him the Medal of Honour for Art and Science in 2009. In 2013 the Armando Foundation was established in the Netherlands. Armando passed away in Potsdam (Brandenburg) in 2018.
Romen Banerjee was born in 1963 in West Berlin. From 1984 to 1990 he studied physics and graduated in art studies at the University of Arts in West Berlin, under Wolfgang Petrick. Banerjee co-founded the Ateliergemeinschaft Tempelhofer Ufer, a studio cooperative, in 1988. In the same year he received the Art Prize of IG Metall. From 1992 to 1993 he was a lecturer at the University of Arts. He is involved in projects such as the Prozessgalerie (2009), an organisation and debate platform. Banerjee lives and works in Berlin.
Kerstin Baudis was born in East Berlin in 1956. After completing evening studies at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin, from 1980 to 1985 she studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig. She is involved in artistic projects such as the communication space Frankfurt (Oder)/Slubice (Poland) and the art project Zementwerk Rüdersdorf in Brandenburg. Baudis lives and works near Berlin.
Hans Bellmer was born in Kattowitz (today Katowice, Poland) in 1902. In the 1920s he began studying engineering in Berlin and came into contact with protagonists of the Dada movement. During a stay in Paris in 1925–26, he was present in Dadaist circles. In 1938 he moved to Paris and became acquainted with the Surrealists around André Breton. After the war years he lived in the south of France. 1949 saw him return to Paris. He participated in documenta as well as in II. documenta. Bellmer died in Paris in 1975.
Christa Dichgans was born in Berlin in 1940. From 1960 to 1965 she studied at the University of the Fine Arts, West Berlin. With a scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, she came to New York and then settled in Rome. Between 1984 and 1988 Dichgans was assistant to Georg Baselitz at the University of Arts, West Berlin. In the 1990s she found inspiration on several extensive trips through Russia and Asia. She is considered a pioneer of German Pop Art. Dichgans died in Berlin in 2018.