Niedling was raised in Erfurt and lives in Berlin. His works revolve around the construction of history, the traces that history left in the collective mind. Later works are also marked with questions on collecting, archiving and organising, whereby the preservation and disappearance of one's own identity comes to the fore. Since the mid-2000s, Niedling has established himself as a conceptual artist and since 2006 collaborates with German writerIngo Niermann. The confrontation with a pyramid mountain as an individual burial ground represents a structuring model of his artistic work. Along with Ingo Niermann he directed and produced the documentary The Future of Art. It consist of interviews with contemporary artists, critics, and collectors such as Olafur Eliasson, Harald Falckenberg, Damien Hirst, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Marina Abramović, Olaf Breuning, Terence Koh, Genesis P-Orridge, Boris Groys, and Tobias Rehberger. In the course of the film, Niermann develops the idea of a pyramid mountain as a work of art, which is also the individual burial place of a collector. At the end of the shooting, Niermann transferred the idea to Erik Niedling, who has since continued it in sometimes radical art projects. In particular, "Mein letztes Jahr", in which Niedling, implementing a drill by Ingo Niermann, consistently lived for one year in the period from 1 March 2011 to 29 February 2012, as if it were his last. This was followed by exhibitions and publications dealing with his artistic and biographical estate as well as the further realisation of the pyramid mountain. On 8 May 2017, Niedling performed a ritual possession of the mountain Kleiner Gleichberg in the district of Hildburghausen for the first time, where since then the "Burial of the White Man" festival has been held on the mountain every 8 May. A critical reflection of his activities took place through publications, interviews and most recently with the novel "Burial of the White Man".
Österreichisches Institut für Photographie und Medienkunst, ed.. "Status / Erik Niedling." Vienna: ÖIP.
ZERN, ed.. "Formation / Erik Niedling." Contributions by Bernd Stiegler and Ingo Niermann. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz.
Erik Niedling with Ingo Niermann. "The Future of Art: A Diary." With texts by Tom McCarthy, Erik Niedling, Ingo Niermann, and Amy Patton. Berlin: Sternberg Press.
Erik Niedling with Ingo Niermann. "Burial of the White Man". With contributions by Ann Cotten and Jakob Nolte. Berlin: Sternberg Press.
