Details:
① Artwork:
Untitled (Matisse Studio)
This painting explores the history of Western 20th-century painting by taking inspiration from artist Henri Matisse. Kiefer employs Matisse's expressive brushstrokes and unique sense of dimension to capture Matisse's own art studio. Kiefer chooses to explore the potential for painting to serve as a source of aesthetic change, much like Matisse and other Western art masters. The artist aims to accomplish this by creating compositions that play with kitsch while exalting the mundane—teasing the positive relationship between the history of images and our contemporaneous social values.
Specs:
③ Artist:
Jan Kiefer’s paintings experiment with the traditional boundaries of composition in 20th-century Western art. His work questions painting’s potential as a source of aesthetic change and other similar critical dogmas, while engaging with socio-political issues. Kiefer's canvases play with both the kitsch and the mundane, teasing the relationship between the history of images and our contemporaneous social values.
BIO:
Jan Kiefer was born in 1979 in Trier, Germany.
A solo exhibition of Kiefer’s work, Skiing Snowman, took place at the Swiss Institute in New York City in 2020.
Keifer’s work has also been shown in other solo and two-person exhibitions, including: at Andri Bischof in Cologne, Germany (2020); with Schwarz Weiss at Union Pacific in London, UK (2019); with Pedro Wirz at Galerie Nagel Draxler in Cologne, Germany (2019); and in the shows JaJaJaJaJaNeinNeinNeinNeinNein at Kai Matsumiya in New York City (2017); Honeybaked at Kunstverein SALTS in Basel, Switzerland (2017); and THEM! with Yoan Mudry at Lokal Int. in Biel, Switzerland (2017).
Group exhibitions showing Keifer’s work include: Concrete Contemporary at Museum Haus Konstrkutiv in Zurich, Switzerland (2019); Group show at Forde in Geneva, Switzerland (2019); Condo at Union Pacific in London, UK (2019); The Broken Shell of the Hermit Crab at Vera Cortes Gallery in Lisbon, Portugal (2018); Hidden Bar at Art Basel in Switzerland (2018); Glasgow International in Scotland (2018); Skulpturenpark in Köln, Germany (2017); White Columns in New York City (2017); Forward to History, with Robert Brambora at Kunstverein Wiesen in Germany (2016); and Giles at Gagosian Gallery in Athens (2016); among others.
