SELECTED WORKS BY Jonathan Meese
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Jonathan Meese
Situation
2003
Oil and Inkjet Print on Wood
208 x 280cm (Collaboration with Albert Oehlen) |
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Albert Oehlen and Jonathan Meese both make paintings about failure: of the function of art, politics, and ideological systems. Working collaboratively, they explore these terrains in a hard-hitting and overtly humorous way. Situation creates a highly sexed still-life: a mangled-faced female figure reduced to tits and a brain. Dealing with issues of visual ideals and sexual politics, their cyborg superwoman is less an archetype of perfection than the suggestive abstract sculptures on the plinth beside her. |
Jonathan Meese
Storm
2004
Oil and Inkjet Print on Wood
208 x 280cm (Collaboration with Albert Oehlen) |
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Describing their merger as a courtly affair of awkward politeness punctuated by artistic embarrassment, Albert
Oehlen & Jonathan Meese unite forces as a way to expand both practice and dialogue. Like a conceptual game of tennis, an artwork is begun, and then bantered back and forth until it gains a life of its own. For the artists, it's a way to accept loosing control over a work, explore the possibility of spontaneous action and reaction, and stamp out self-indulgent excess like a bad habit. The end results are both breathtaking and funny. Storm cheekily sets computer-generated porn as the hot-bod for a wild-armed monstress: a goddess of violent temper and salvation. |
Jonathan Meese
The Greeting
2003
Oil and Inkjet Print on Wood
208 x 280cm (Collaboration with Albert Oehlen) |
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In a collaborative process made simple, Oehlen provides the photographic material and both artists take turns painting around it. None of these works are immediately recognisable as Oehlen or Meese, and that's what makes them so good. Like a nuclear fusion, the two become one; an invincible super-artist refining the best qualities of both.
The Greeting is a ridiculous portrait of a lumpy gangly-armed housewife waving about a feather duster/penis, teetering on glamour model's legs. The render her almost obscenely repulsive, but the sexual delusion of the male gaze is inevitable: the artists' collage in a mirror to peek up her dress. |
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ARTIST INFORMATION
Jonathan Meese's BIOGRAPHY
1970
Born, Tokyo, Japan
1995-1998
Hochschule der Bildenden Künste, Hamburg (Prof. Franz Erhard
Walther)
Lives and works in Berlin and Hamburg
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2004
Spezialbilder , Contemporary
Fine Arts, Berlin
The Boiler Room, Saatchi Gallery, London Dommuseum Salzburg, Salzburg
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
2003
Modern Art, London
2002
Young Americans , Contemporary Fine Arts,
Berlin
Love , Galerie Ascan Crone, Hamburg
Uhrwerk Moderne Zeiten, Schloss Balmoral, Bad Ems
Ernte, Galerie Karlheinz Meyer, Karlsruhe
Revolution, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover
L`Amour, Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris
2001
Jonathan Meese, Leo Koenig Inc., New York
Van Gogh 1924 (Selbstbildnis mit Spindel), Galerie Krinzinger,
Wien
2000
Volkszorn Wilhelm I-III , Galerie Christian
Nagel, Köln
Soldat Meese, Maldoror-Turm, Städtisches Museum Abteiberg,
The return of doctor Cyclops, Paolo Curti & Co., Mailand
Capitaine Danjou Légion Étrangère, Galerie
Karlheinz Meyer, Karlsruhe
Captaine Danjou - Holzhand im Saalysm, Kunst-Werke, Berlin
1999
Good Bye , Neuer Aachener Kunstverein,
Aachen
Schnitt bringt Schnitte, Ausstellungsraum Schnitt, Köln
Sonnentanz/ Der Weidenmann/ Nahrung/ Erzisis, Kunsthalle
St. Gallen
Frontbibliothek Meese, Schaufensteraustellung und Künstlerbuchpräsentation,
Buchhandlung Walter König, Köln Wunderkammern:
Erzreligion Blutlazarett/ Erzsöldner Richard Wagner/Privatarmee
Ernte und Saat/ Waffe: Erzblut der Isis/ Nahrung: Bluterz,
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt
Gesinnung ‘99 - Der letzte Lichtstrahl des Jahrtausends
(mit ErwinKneihsl), Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
1998
De Räuber, Contemporary Fine Arts,
Berlin
1997
Kunstverein Kehding
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2003
deutschemalereizweitausendrei,
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt
Grotesk!, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
Warum!, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin
2002
Garden Landscape Ostwestfalen-Lippe
2002, Kloster Willebadessen, Willebadessen
Private Mythen , Galerie Sabine Knust, München
Hossa, Centro Cultural Andratx, Mallorca (E)
2001
Jonathan Meese, Centre D`Art
Contemporain, Fribourg
Ziviler Ungehorsam – Zeitgenössische Kunst aus
der Sammlung
Falckenberg, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (Kat.)
Musterkarte, Galería Heinrich Ehrhardt, Madrid
2000
L. A. - ex , Museum Villa Stuck,
München
Berlin-Binnendifferenz, Phase 1 - Wien, Galerie Krinzinger,
Wien;
Benger Areal, Bregenz
Europe - Different Perspectives in Painting, MuMi Museo Michetti,
Francavilla al Mare, Italien
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Other artists in GERMANIA:NEW ART FROM GERMANY
Gert & Uwe Tobias | Markus Amm | Dirk Bell | Felix Gmelin | Stefan Kürten | Jutta Koether | Ulrich Lamsfuss | Andrea Lehmann | Jonathan Meese | Kirstine Roepstorff | Julian Rosefeldt | Christoph Ruckhäberle | Corinne Wasmuht | Thomas Zipp
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