Manfred Wakolbinger was born on November 6th, 1952 in Mitterkirchen in Upper Austria. The artist attended the secondary technical school for metal design and tool construction in Steyr. After graduating in 1972 he worked as an industrial fitter in Berlin. In 1975 he moved to Vienna, where he started to create jewellery designs together with Anna Heindl who later (in 1979) became his wife. At the same time he attended seminars given by Bazon Brock at the University for Applied Art.
In 1980, having trained himself, he started to work on sculptures.
From 1989 he created photographic works and, from 1995, he also focussed on underwater photography. In 1992 he was given the City of Vienna Award for Fine Arts. In 1993 Wakolbinger created the show collection for design and architecture at MAK Vienna. Since the 1980s, his works have been presented in both individual and group exhibitions, amongst others at Documenta and Venice Biennale, at Museum Küppersmühle (2006), the Museum for Applied Art (Vienna) (2003) and Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (1999) and in 1997 at 20erHaus (Museum of Modern Art, Vienna).
Furthermore, many of his works are exhibited in public spaces (Vienna, Krems-Stein, Linz, Graz 2003, Salzburg).