Timm Ulrichs is considered one of the most important German conceptual and action artists. Ulrichs writes concrete poetry, makes performance art, and works as a sculptor.  Early in his career, in a conscious gesture of rejection, Ulrichs withdrew from the art market. The artist has been active as a self-proclaimed “total artist” since 1959 when he displayed himself in a glass box and determined himself "the first living artwork". 

Instead of found objects, Ulrichs uses his own body as the raw material – in a material as well as an intellectual sense. All of his limbs, hair, skin, nails, blood, semen can take on the characteristics of art; its internal processes and even his life-maintaining needs such as eating and sleeping can then be viewed differently. Based on the idea of the readymade, he makes his life, his everyday routines, his body all  the subject and object of his art.