...after three days enjoying Christian Jankowski's artworks, a catalogue on the Heavy Weight History and many others!
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Artists' Film Biennial 2014: Christian Jankowski Programme 1 : Reframed
This first part of a three-part retrospective programme offers a glimpse at Jankowski’s films, presenting a selection of work charting a period of over years twenty years.
Christian Jankowski (born 1968, Göttingen, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibition include Heavy Weight History, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2013); The Eye of Dubai, The Pavilion Downtown Dubai, Dubai, UAE (2013) and Casting Jesus, MACRO (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma), Rome. He has participated in numerous group shows including Tears and Politics: Works by Phil Collins and Christian Jankowski, Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2014);Christian Jankowski and Guga Ferraz, Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Mexico (2012); What Happened to God?, Halle 14, Leipzig (2012) and The Beauty and the Distance, 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010).
This three-part retrospective programme offers a generous glimpse at Jankowski’s films, presenting a selection of work charting a period of over years twenty years from 1992 to the present. Each programme is structured around a theme, defining a distinct strand of his practice.
The first programme, Reframed, draws on the absurdity that often arises when contexts are juxtaposed or realigned. Puppet Conference, 2003, sees a line-up of familiar puppets, synonymous with childhood pursuits, engaged in a very different dialogue. Lycan Theorized, 2009, takes a cinematic tone to explore Lacanian theory through the lens of the horror genre.
- Discourse News, 2012, SD video, colour, sound, 5 min 45 sec
- Ebbe in Freedom, 1992, SD video, colour, sound, 8 min 58 sec
- Lycan Theorized, 2006, 35mm transferred to SD video, colour, sound, 23 min
- Puppet Conference, 2003, SD video, colour, sound, 25 min
- Rosa, 2001, SD video, colour, sound, 18 min 54 sec
Total duration: 82 min
Artists' Film Biennial 2014: Christian Jankowski Programme 2 : Learning the Absurd
This second part of a three-part retrospective programme offers a glimpse at Jankowski’s films, presenting a selection of work charting a period of over years twenty years.
Christian Jankowski (born 1968, Göttingen, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibition include Heavy Weight History, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2013); The Eye of Dubai, The Pavilion Downtown Dubai, Dubai, UAE (2013) and Casting Jesus, MACRO (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma), Rome. He has participated in numerous group shows including Tears and Politics: Works by Phil Collins and Christian Jankowski, Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2014);Christian Jankowski and Guga Ferraz, Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Mexico (2012); What Happened to God?, Halle 14, Leipzig (2012) and The Beauty and the Distance, 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010).
This three-part retrospective programme offers a generous glimpse at Jankowski’s films, presenting a selection of work charting a period of over years twenty years from 1992 to the present. Each programme is structured around a theme, defining a distinct strand of his practice.
This second programme, Learning the Absurd, draws together a diverse selection of works that connect childhood with adult pursuits and vice versa. The humorous The Matrix Effect, 2000, features a cast of children, each playing the role of an artist from the late 20th Century. In contrast, Rooftop, 2007 features an adult cast who give advice on the most effective approaches to hula hooping.
- Cleaning Up the Studio, 2010, HD video, colour, sound, 9 min 33 sec
- When I Was Cuisillo, 2009, SD video, colour, sound, 2 min 57 sec
- Rooftop Routine, 2007, SD video, colour, sound, 4 min 30 sec
- Let’s Get Physical/ Digital, 1997, SD video, colour, sound, 37 min 32 sec
- The Finest Art on Water, 2011, HD video, colour, sound, 10 min
- The Matrix Effect, 2000, SD video, colour, sound, 24 min 54 sec
Total duration: 90 min
Artists' Film Biennial 2014: Christian Jankowski Programme 2 : Believe Me + Q&A
This last part of a three-part retrospective programme offers a glimpse at Jankowski’s films, presenting a selection of work charting a period of over twenty years.
Christian Jankowski (born 1968, Göttingen, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibition include Heavy Weight History, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2013); The Eye of Dubai, The Pavilion Downtown Dubai, Dubai, UAE (2013) and Casting Jesus, MACRO (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma), Rome. He has participated in numerous group shows including Tears and Politics: Works by Phil Collins and Christian Jankowski, Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2014);Christian Jankowski and Guga Ferraz, Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Mexico (2012); What Happened to God?, Halle 14, Leipzig (2012) and The Beauty and the Distance, 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010).
This three-part retrospective programme offers a generous glimpse at Jankowski’s films, presenting a selection of work charting a period of over years twenty years from 1992 to the present. Each programme is structured around a theme, defining a distinct strand of his practice.
The final programme, Believe Me, takes a focused look at belief structures, in particular those of the art world. Jankowski’s Telemistica, 1999, sees a host of TV psychics advise the artist on his participation in the 2009 Venice Biennale. The recent Heavy Weight History, 2013, takes the form of a television sports report. A group of Eastern European weight lifters take up the challenge of attempting to lift monuments symbolic of the region's past.
The screening is followed by a Q&A with artist Christian Jankowski and ICA Associate Curator of Artists’ Film and Moving Image Steven Cairns.
16-mm Mystery, 2004, 35mm transferred to DVD, colour, sound, 5 min
The Hunt, 1992, SD video, colour, sound, 1 min 11 sec
Telemistica, 1999, SD video, colour, sound, 22 min 8 sec
The Holy Artwork, 2001, SD video, colour, sound 2001, 15 min 52 sec
No One Better Than You, 2004, SD video, colour, sound, 3 min 1sec
Heavy Weight History, 2013, HD video, colour, sound, 25 min 46 sec
Der Malteser Blick, 2014, HD video, colour, sound, 1 min 49 sec
Total duration: 76 min + 30 min Q&A
Curated by Steven Cairns, ICA Associate Curator of Artists’ Film and Moving Image.
Since the early 1990s, German artist Christian Jankowski has tested the boundaries between high art and mass-culture. Often co-opting the space of commercial television and cinema, he continuously subverts and pokes fun at the role of mass culture in the everyday, paralleling the structure of the art world with that of organised religion or the cult of the celebrity.
Christian Jankowski (b. 1968, Göttingen, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include “Heavy Weight History”, Lisson Gallery, London (2014); “Heavy Weight History”, CCA Tel Aviv (2014) and Wasser, Käse, Feuer. Christian Jankowski. “25 Editionen und ein anonymes Original” Helga Maria Klosterfelde Edition, Berlin (2014). He has participated in numerous group shows including “Tears and Politics: Works by Phil Collins and Christian Jankowski”, Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2014); “Room Service”, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2014); “Real Emotions: Thinking in Film”, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2014) and “Things we discover alone (Independent Learning)”, Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig (2014).
Please note that all films are 18+ unless otherwise stated.
