After an education as a photolithographer Vostell studied at the Academy of Arts in Wuppertal from 1954 to 1955. He travelled extensively and in 1954 he developed in Paris the concept of the 'décollage' out of torn billboards, which in transferral onto the process of events determined his later oeuvre. After a further course of studies at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and followed by a disappointing return to the Academy in Düsseldorf, Vostell decided in 1958 that art takes place in the street and he integrated the audience into his first happenings. Together with Maciunas and Pajk he was one of the first members of Fluxus who called for the treatment of lives as equivalent to art in 1962. Until today, graphic work, video, environments and installations such as the 'Fluxus-Train - the mobile Museum Vostell' (1981) circle around themes of social critique and can be understood as involvements in the design of public spaces. Numerous exhibitions accompanied Vostell's producing, in 1974 the first large retrospective took place at the Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and in 1977 he participated in the documenta VI in Kassel. At last Vostell also designed architectural models, e.g. for the museum in Malpartida in Southern Spain, which he founded. Vostell mainly lived and worked in Paris, Berlin and Andalusia until his death in 1998.