stephan jung - host #3 video's en schilderijen bij Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries
3 april - 7 mei 2005
opening zaterdag 3 april 16.00 - 18.00 uur
stephan jung, Host #2, 2003, oil on canvas, 265 x 230 cm.
ASCHENBACH & HOFLAND GALLERIES
BILDERDIJKSTRAAT 165-C
NL-1053KP AMSTERDAM
TFN+31(0)20 4121772
TFX+31(0)20 4121778
MOBILE+31(0)629023933
openingstijden:
woensdag tot en met zaterdag en iedere eerste zondag van de maand van 12.00 - 17.00 uur.
----------
STEPHAN JUNG
1964 born in Stuttgart
1985 - 92 Akademie der bildenden Künste, Stuttgart, Prof. K.R.H. Sonderborg and Joseph Kosuth Lives and works in Berlin
Exhibitions (Selection, S = Solo Exhibition, G = Group Exhibition, C = Catalogue)
2005
»host #4«, Galerie der Stadt Backnang (S, C
»host #3«, Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries, Amsterdam (S) »host #2«, Galerie Hammelehle und Ahrens, Köln (S)
2004
»host 1«, Centro Cultural Andratx, Mallorca (S)
»Contemporary Art from Germany«, European Central Bank and Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt/Main (G, C) »elektrische«, Galica Arte Contemporanea, Mailand, curated by Alessandra Pace (S, C) »Stay Positive!«, Marella Arte Contemporanea, Mailand (G, C)
2003
Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries, Amsterdam (S)
»Der silberne Schnitt«, Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (G, C) »Action Button«, Neuerwerbungen zur Bundessammlung Zeitgenössischer Kunst, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (G, C) »New abstract painting - painting abstract now«, Museum Schloss Morsbroich, Leverkusen (G, C)
2002
»Hua Dong«, Galerie Hammelehle und Ahrens, Köln (S) »Schöne Aussicht Herr Schweins«, Galerie Otto Schweins, Köln (G) »Reflections«, Galerie Philomene Magers, München (G) Leipziger Kunstverein (C)
Galerie EIGEN+ART, Leipzig
2001
Kunstverein Cloppenburg (G)
"A1-R11", Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin (G) "Offensive Malerei", Künstlerhaus Lothringer Straße, München (G, C) Galerie Hammelehle und Ahrens, Stuttgart (S)
"Figurações", Galería Mário Sequeira, Braga-Portugal (G) "Musterkarte - Modelos de Pintura en Alemania", Goethe-Institut Madrid, Galería Heinrich Ehrhardt, Madrid, Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Madrid (G) Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg (S)
Kunsthalle Göppingen (G)
2000
Galerie Hammelehle und Ahrens, Stuttgart (S)
"Reality bytes. Der medial vermittelte Blick.", Kunsthalle Nürnberg (G) Galerie Eigen+Art, Berlin (S)
Galería Heinrich Ehrhardt, Madrid (S)
Atelier Jörg Immendorff, Düsseldorf (S)
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, ständige Sammlung (G)
1999
Galerie Lotta Hammer, London (S)
Galerie James Flach, Stockholm (S)
"Paint/Land/Beauty", Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland (G) Galerie Eigen+Art, Leipzig (S)
1998
Galerie Philomene Magers, Cologne (G)
Neonarbeit im öffentlichen Raum, Jena
Kunstverein Lüneburg (E, C)
Kunstverein Kassel (E, C)
Galerie Hammelehle und Ahrens, Stuttgart (S)
Galerie Eigen+Art, Berlin (S)
Galería Heinrich Ehrhardt, Madrid (G)
1996
Kunstverein Düsseldorf (G)
"Von den Dingen", Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen (G, C)
1995
Galerie Hammelehle und Ahrens, Stuttgart (S)
Galerie Eigen+Art, Berlin (S)
Technik/Techno, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (G, C)
1993
Ausstellungsraum Friedensallee 12, Hamburg (S)
"Übungsgelände-Europa, der Nacken des Stieres", Austellungsprojekt in Suhl "3K-NH", Linienstraße 146, Berlin, 3 Gruppenaustellungen in 10 Tagen
1992
"Kunst kaufen in der Invalidenstraße 31" and "Mutzek-Artikel des täglichen Bedarfs" in Berlin-Mitte. Konzept and Realisation von Stephan Jung, 16 Artist zeigten ihre Arbeiten in 6 Austellungen (C) "liebste Engel sind Formen des richtigen Moments", "engel abschießen" und "ich verweise auf das Gegenteil", Neonarbeiten im öffentlichen Raum, Berlin Mitte
----------
Conversation between Stephan Jung and Alessandra Pace, February 2004
SJ: (...) I was mainly making neon sculptures and also prints. I studied under Joseph Kosuth and my imprint was conceptual.
AP: So what was it that brought about the turning point into painting - or should one think of it as a turning point at all?
SJ: Maybe not. In 1993 I took up painting because I did not want to communicate. I longed for solitude, for time alone without having to justify and explain anything to anyone. The medium I used was, in a way, just a means to enable me to continue working under conditions that were more suitable to me. Conceptual art is vociferous and I needed quiet. The other thing is that in Berlin one can get big, cheap studio spaces, so painting is not a particularly cumbersome technique here.
AP: I suppose that in this day and age it does not make any sense to differentiate between techniques. In fact, after years of painting you have started making videos, and they are just as much within the scope of your work as they expand and clarify it. Still, I am interested to know where you come from and how it all started...
SJ: When still at art school I was interested in natural textures and wanted to reproduce them myself. I experimented with flour, acrylic and oil until I realized the complexity of doing so and noticed that what I was doing did not work. At first I saw this as a failure, then I realized that even if I succeeded, this exercise was nonsensical. What's the point of displacing natural textures in order to reproduce them? This is how I reverted to artificial textures such as those found in advertisement.
AP: Why textures at all?
SJ: Because translating structure from tactile to visual intrigues me.
AP: I suppose it represents a process of discovery in which you identify data that you transpose into another context to see how they work there and if they retain the same value.
SJ: Yes. In any case, I am less interested in natural sciences than I am in culture. History and memory have a tremendous richness because they are a constant that punctuates our lives. The only history a natural object carries with it is its biological or chemical structure, whereas images from ads carry meaning with them ...
AP: And different assessments linked to such meaning...
SJ: This is why I turned to looking at advertisement. Ads are attractive. They are bright, colourful and slick. However, I am not interested in labels, but in the way images are built. Advertisement and various media have become the image-makers art competes with.
AP: Surely, the role of the artist today cannot be the same that it was for centuries in the past. Long ago, all an artist needed to do was to offer images representing his context. Not that this was enough to give him posterity, but it was enough to make him an artist at all. Nowadays that function has been taken on by advertisement and the media. There is no way an artist can compete with the bulk of imagery proposed by them. And there is also no way an artist can insinuate meanings into collective imagination the way he used to - just think of it, entire generations were struck by images of heaven and hell, and this alone functioned as a tool in the service of authority.
SJ: I don't know. The function of the painters at the time of Church patronage was to a great degree that of making propaganda for a product: i.e. religion. Today, the product is the consumer durable item. In other words, I don't think that the function of the painters has changed much. What has definitely changed, though, is that the messages have become more layered and different levels of 'meaning' are geared into many directions.
AP: Don't tell me that your aim as an artist is to serve consumerism! I thought you describe what you do in painting as having a critical function.
SJ: Well, yes. I take ads, disassemble and reconstruct them in a process that works as a critique, or at least as an enquiry, because by doing so I discover many of the passages composing the given image.
AP: Much like a child who breaks the toy because he wants to look inside and find out how it is made...
SJ: If you like. In any case, I see my role as an artist to enter the picture at the level of meaning. Identifying given values and looking at how they work.
AP: Let's get back to light. Is seems to me that it is used to emphasise the surface of the painting. Light breaks onto the canvas revealing it as a membrane interposed between the viewer and the image. Sorry if I bring in historical examples, but I suppose painting is such a loaded technique that one has to locate it within this context. So, your paintings are not a window into a three-dimensional landscape, in the manner of the Flemish Renaissance, nor do they trick the viewer into the illusion of the trompe l'oeil, as in the Baroque. Your pictures rather resemble computer monitors. Beyond the screen the image is flat. Light reflections and translucence have the function of selecting the objects for the viewer to focus on. Likewise, perspective is almost absent from your paintings. As if the viewer were not supposed to enter into the image but rather recognize it as a confined object. It seems to me that the only times you introduce perspective into your paintings you do it in order to generate a feeling of dynamism. Like virtual perspective in computer games...
SJ: I always use artificial and cold light. TV also works with light. I suppose I never try to reproduce the effects of natural light... My images are born from other images and elaborated in the computer. This is where I shape and compose them before scaling them up onto the canvas. Natural atmospheres are irrelevant to my work. Likewise, although I depict known objects, I distort them by magnifying some of their details to the point that they are hardly recognizable. And when I do reproduce recognizable images I mostly do it in a mediated way. In reality every stone in a wall has a specific texture. In images of virtual reality the texture of one stone is taken as an example and used repeatedly, carrying out its qualities to every stone illustrated in that image in a standardised fashion. A model of texture is replicated indefinitely. These are the elements I work with.
AP: Now I want to provoke you: why don't you print them out directly from the computer then?
SJ: Because I try to connect things. I try to keep the coat of paint thin upon the canvas so that it remains ephemeral in structure. Still, painting has a 'soul' because you cannot avoid a certain gestuality that goes with the texture of the paint you use, even if you try to limit it to a minimum degree.
----------
----------
if you want to be removed from this list, return this email with 'remove' in the subject form.