Gregor Schneider was born in 1969 in the German town of Rheydt. In 1985, at the age of just sixteen, he held his first personal exhibition entitled Pubertäre Verstimmung at the Kontrast Gallery in Mönchengladbach.

From 1989 to 1992, he perfected his artistic studies at various German art academies, including the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, the Kunstakademie in Münster and the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg. Since 2016, he has been professor of sculpture at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf.

In 2001, he took part in the Venice Biennale, where he won the Golden Lion. The same year, he also took part in the Tirana Biennial. In 2007, he took part in the first Athens Biennial and in 2015, exhibited at the Havana Biennial n Cuba, where he presented the work White Torture.

His works have been exhibited at major artistic institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (2004), the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (2005), the MoMA PS1 in New York (2007), the Belvedere Museum in Vienna (2012) and the Sanshang Museum of Contemporary Art in Hangzhou, China (2019).

In 2008, he had an important solo exhibition at the MACRO in Rome, curated by Danilo Eccher.