Marcus Jansen Articles Archive
THIS SECTION CONTAINS AN ARCHIVE OF RECENT ARTICLES ABOUT URBAN EXPRESSIONIST/SURREALIST MARCUS JANSEN.
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First ever Austrian exhibition of Jansen paintings opens at Vienna’s Galerie Amart on November 7 (10-25-19)
Work by local artist Marcus Jansen will be exhibited in a solo show by Galerie Amart in Vienna beginning November 7. It’s the first time Jansen’s work has ever been shown in Austria. The survey will include 29 works and run through January 25, 2020.
The Galerie Amart show is the latest in a series of international exhibitions which includes solo exhibitions at the La Triennale di Milano Museum (Milan, Italy), the Spandau Citadel (Berlin, Germany), and inclusions at the 12th annual International Biennial Print and Drawing competition at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. His work is also included in the permanent collections of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, New Britain Museum of American Art, The Perm Museum of Contemporary Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Housatonic Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
Two time Documenta Kassel curator, Prof. Dr. Manfred Schneckenburger calls Jansen “One of the most important American Painters of his Generation.”
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University of Michigan Museum adds Jansen oil to its permanent collection (10-19-19)
The University of Michigan Museum of Art has added Marcus Jansen’s 84 x 72” oil on canvas The Hide Out to its permanent collection of modern and contemporary art. The UMMA collection covers the whole of the twentieth century and extends up to the present day. Early modern masters such as Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris introduce Cubism to viewers, and movements such as Surrealism, German Expressionism and Abstract Expressionism are also well represented.
UMMA’s holdings of art produced during the latter half of the twentieth century include masterpieces by Franz Kline, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Richard Diebenkorn, and Larry Rivers. More recent work by artists such as Enrique Chagoya, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Ann Hamilton, Sally Mann, and Carrie Mae Weems bring UMMA’s collections up to the present day.
Whether in painting, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, fiber, wood, metalworking, glass, or basketry, the modern and contemporary collections at UMMA demonstrate the brilliant and wide-ranging artistic output of the past 100 years.
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Jansen opens studio in South Bronx (10-19-19)
Marcus Jansen has opened a second studio in the emerging Mott Haven/Port Morris section of the South Bronx, not far from where his journey began 51 years ago. Jansen will join the South Bronx Independent Artist Coalition on E 132nd street starting in November.
While Jansen will continue to maintain his main headquarters in his 7,500-square-foot warehouse in Fort Myers, he has decided to return to his native South Bronx to contribute to the growth that is beginning to take place there.
“I think it’s exciting,” Jansen comments. “The South Bronx has always been a cradle for creativity. I hope my art can contribute just a bit to that. It’s the birthplace of Hip Hop and graffiti art culture that has changed the art world permanently and it’s nice going back to my roots.”
The studio will be directed by Sarah Sagarin, who is part of a group of artists and artisans who work in the South Bronx neighborhoods of Port Morris and Mott Haven.
It will be part of the South Bronx Independent Artists Coalition, which was founded in 2018 with the goal of broadening the artistic community by connecting, supporting, and promoting South Bronx artists with events and programming throughout the year.
Jansen and his family lived between Boynton and Story Ave in the Soundview area of the Bronx in the early 1970s and spent his first years there before moving to Queens and later Germany, where he was educated. After serving in the Armed Forces in Iraq during Desert Storm, Jansen returned to New York, selling his early work on street corners in lower Manhattan. He successfully presented his street-and-graffiti- influenced art in exhibitions at renowned international museums while pioneering urban landscape paintings in the late 1990s.
Today, Jansen is considered one of the most important painters of his generation according to critics and scholars. He is collected by the likes of Singer Nicole Scherzinger, NBA Superstar Carmelo Anthony, Hollywood actor John Ortiz, top 200 collector list members Amy and John Phelan and Collector Peggy Cooper Cafritz. His commissions include corporations such as Absolut Vodka, Warner Brothers, Illuminum, FIFA World Cup and Ford Motor Company. He is represented by galleries in London, Paris, Vienna, Dusseldorf, Shanghai and here in the United States. His first U.S. solo museum traveling exhibition starts in 2020.
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Solo show of Jansen work opening in Paris on September 7 (08-24-19)
Fort Myers artist Marcus Jansen is opening a solo show of his work at the Danysz gallery in Paris on September 7. Titled Stop, Look and Listen, the exhibition will run through October 12.
The Press Release announcing the show draws a parallel between Jansen’s formative experiences and those of Jackson Pollock. In Pollock’s case, he learned to throw sand to make pictures from the Hopi Indians. Back from Desert Storm, Jansen was influenced by the graffiti he saw on the sides of subway trains when he traveled from the Bronx to Manhattan to sell his work on Prince Street in Soho in order to survive.
Described alternately as urban expressionism and post-urban cataclysmic surrealism, his unique blend of abstract and the figurative belies the influences of the Iraqi war and the intensity of his post-conflict urban environment. He got his big break when his work drew the attention of Jerome A. Donson, who organized exhibitions of such prestigious artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline as Director of MOMA’s American Vanguard Exhibitions in Europe.
Danysz gallery is located at 78 rue Amelot. For more information, you may email the gallery at clemence@danyszgallery.com or Unit A Space at unitaspaceinfo@gmail.com.
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Jansen’s ‘Now and Then’ being exhibited by prestigious Aspen gallery (07-13-18)
The Casterline/Goodman Gallery in Aspen, Colorado specializes in first-tier original contemporary artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries, including original paintings, sculptures and drawings by established artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol. And this summer, the Casterline|Goodman Gallery is featuring work by Fort Myers artist Marcus Jansen. His show, Now and Then, is on view there through August 5.
Influenced by the Graffiti and Abstract Expressionist movements in vogue in New York while he was growing up and German Expressionism while he was being formally educated in Europe later on, Jansen’s painting employ large gestural landscapes in which abstraction is real and the real is abstract, thereby riding the line between fact and fiction, the surreal and expressive. Jansen’s works are collected in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), The New Britain Museum of American Art, The PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, the Housatonic Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
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An interview with artist Marcus Jansen (07-13-18)
Bertram Muller is the past president and a distinguished member of the European Dance Network. He has worked for more than 20 years to develop methods of applied psychology that support creative processes, in particular, the autonomous, creative shaping of the personality and development of individual vocational artists’ profiles. Mr. Muller recently interviewed Fort Myers artist Marcus Jansen in connection with work Jansen has on exhibition in Dusseldorf, Germany. As the questions he posed and the answers provided give new insight into Jansen’s thinking and creative process, they are reproduced here for your consideration and enjoyment:
BM: When looking at your pictures, you first think: what a mess! But in this chaos there is also order: the will to compose, the interplay of colors. Is there a beauty in the ugly?
MJ: Absolutely. My work is all about that. What is not rationally understandable to the normal viewer is interesting to me.
BM: They come from street art, so they want to be understood by as many as possible. The “Tagesspiegel” recently wrote about art: “Journalism with the Brush”. How do you see that?
MJ: Journalism has to do with facts. By contrast, my pictures are actually an answer to what I see, feel and absorb from our world. Journalism may not quite meet the description, but I do a lot of research. I read a lot, keep track of globalization and its effects, even what’s happening today. These are things that move me and that I want to find answers to.
BM: In the Gulf War you experienced the operation “Desert Storm” as a GI. Many returned with post-traumatic stress disorder. What did that mean to you, how did the war affect your art?
MJ: The war has changed my mindset. And as far as my art is concerned, I do not think I would paint the way I paint, if that experience did not exist. I became more critical when I came back.
BM: What was your art before this experience?
MJ: I was critical of the “urban environments” in the U.S., criticizing the inner cities in my paintings. I depicted a darker side of the U.S., so I had already dealt with these things in my graffiti.
BM: You are called an artist of the post-factic age, an age in which trust no longer seems to hold much. Is this, above all, an American phenomenon, or is it rampant worldwide?
MJ: This is a worldwide phenomenon. But since I live in the USA, of course, I respond to many things that happen there – but not only. In the meantime, every country has become affected by globalization, and much has changed since September 11: security measures and the newly-defined understanding of freedom in a threatened environment exists.
BM: At first glance, the pictures are often harmless, but then turn out to be criticisms of the effects of our lavish lifestyle on nature. In which tradition do you see yourself?
MJ: I have always seen myself in connection with the German Expressionists. They too responded to war, poverty in society and hardship. Likewise with the American abstract expressionists, who worked very spontaneously. Spontaneity is directed against the national. That’s natural for me.
BM: Both types of expressionism flow together in their images, with the edges sticking out, and in the middle two bath ducks swim.
MJ: Exactly. I work without pre-drawings, go directly to the white canvas, and after hours or weeks, a story peels off. This happens instinctively.
BM: That means you work without concept?
MJ: Most of the time, but sometimes I have a picture or a picture that inspires me. But usually a picture arises out of the picture itself.
BM: Rauschenberg and Basquiat are mentioned again and again when they speak of your art. What do you value about their life’s work?
MJ: I got to meet Rauschenberg – he lived with us in our area – and I showed with him in shows. The working method of Basquiat and Rauschenberg is freedom, a non-rational work. So they have developed a new language. Rauschenberg has always been big for me. When I was still living in Mönchengladbach, at the age of 14, I saw a Rauschenberg book for the first time at the station. I was amazed how he included finds from everyday life in his art. This urban element has interested me very much.
BM: What were your first steps on the American art market?
MJ: At the age of six, I had my first exhibition at New York’s Lever House, which today houses one of the most important American art collections.
BM: In the meantime you are exhibiting in Russia as well as in Taiwan or the USA. What do you think collectors and museums appreciate about your art in particular?
MJ: First, that it is unique, second, that it is critical art. Especially in the U.S., there is little expressive critical art. In Germany, it is more common, also because of the history. In the U.S., the art market has recently become very commercial; I wanted to work against it. That’s how I came to critical art.
BM: Do you occasionally return to the place of your youth, to Mönchengladbach?
MJ: The last time I was there, just before I went to the Iraq war – so that was a long time ago. My brother is there more often. We have acquaintances from back then. This time I also visited my former school, the Berufskolleg Platz der Republik for technology and media, where I was trained as a painter and varnisher. The city has changed.
MJ: Yes, yes, it has become more international. And it seemed a lot smaller then.
BM: Speaking of international affairs: Do you follow the political developments in the relationship between the USA and Germany?
MJ: I’m less interested in presidents, I’m interested in the private power behind them. This is less talked about: the economy. It has been controlling the U.S. for a long time, no matter under what president. It’s also about warfare. War has become a business. That’s one of the reasons why I left the army. I realized that it has little to do with defense.
MJ: Germany should stay more critical.
BM: Your critical paintings are to be seen in the exhibition collections of numerous foreign museums, but not in Germany. Why not?
MJ: In Germany, we are just beginning on the museum level. There will be a lot going on in the next two years.
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Jansen documentary to come out on VIMEO this summer (07-31-17)
Marcus Jansen: Examine & Report premiered on April 7, 2016 at the 6th Annual Fort Myers Film Festival, where it received honors as Best Local Documentary. Since then, the film has been screened at the opening of Jansen art exhibitions in Italy, Germany and other locations. Meanwhile, the film’s trailer has received nearly 200,000 views to date on YouTube. Now, the full documentary is being released this summer on VIMEO.
Examine & Report explores Jansen’s motives for painting and gives historic insight into his socio-politically charged works, which have roots in Graffiti, Street Art and German and American Expressionism. The film dissects the social and political influences and motivations of the former U.S. soldier turned critical contemporary painter and chronicles how urban-influenced painting achieved recognition by international museums over the last several decades.
Not only does the documentary provide insight into Jansen’s life and art, it furnishes an introduction to the uninitiated into the larger world of contemporary art by means of a series of interviews that Emmy-winning filmmaker John Scoular conducted with art world luminaries including Steve Lazarides (who was street artist BANKSY’s first agent), Lawrence Voytek (who was Robert Rauschenberg protégé and decades-long gallery director), West Rubinstein, Noah Becker, Dieter Rampl and Brooke Lynn McGowan (an art historian, curator and writer who is recognized worldwide as the leading expert on Jansen’s works).
The documentary was shot during 2015 at locations in New York, Miami, London and Fort Myers and is now an integral part of Jansen’s museum and DECADE book tour, which opened in 2016 in Milan, Italy. Special footage includes revealing interviews with Jansen along with peeks of the artist at work.
“I just tried to stay out of the way of the film, which kind of told its own story,” Scoular humbly told the small crowd that gathered at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre for the FMff champagne dessert and awards ceremony. “We’re very lucky to witness Marcus’ rise. He’s gone from [selling his art on] Prince Street in New York to museums in Milan, Germany and beyond. He’s at the top of his game, and he gets to enjoy it while he’s still alive. That’s pretty unprecedented.”
The film is being screened at each stop in Jansen’s tw0-year worldwide museum tour, which wraps up later this year. Scoular is trying to get it shown in New York, as well. The film will not only play a pivotal role in familiarizing art lovers, collectors and professionals around the globe with Jansen and his art, it will build upon the reputation that the legendary Robert Rauschenberg began when he made Captiva the site of his international headquarters and working studio and the loci of the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange (ROCI), an initiative that Rauschenberg launched in 1982 for purposes of forging communication with other nations through the language of art by providing carefully-selected venues where artists, sculptors, poets and authors from around the world could meet and exchange creative ideas in the spirit of collaboration.
“Jansen is not just a broad chronicler of the many mishaps in American society and politics, but a most passionate artist, a full blooded painter and colorist through and through,” notes art critic and two-time Kassel documenta curator Dr. Manfred Schneckenburger. “Today he is recognized … and I do not say this lightly… as one of the most important American painters of his generation.”
Although Examine & Report has enjoyed both critical acclaim and considerable exposure, Scoular received his Emmy for his subsequent film, Paradise Reef, which aired on PBS on June 30, 2016. It was WGCU’PBS’ most watched online video in 2016 and has been viewed in over 1195 cities and more than 29 countries around the world. It ended the year with the 2016 Suncoast Regional Emmy in the Topical Documentary category from the Suncoast Chapter of The National Academy of Television Art & Sciences. The film was pitted against competing documentaries produced in the Suncoast Chapter region, Paradise Reef 11which is comprised of Mobile, Alabama, Thomasville, Georgia, the cities of Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles and New Orleans, Louisiana, the entire State of Florida and the island of Puerto Rico.
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Jansen exhibition at Heitsch Gallery extended to September 2 (07-31-17)
Marcus Jansen: AFTERMATH opened at the Heitsch Gallery on Thursday, July 6. The show was set to close on August 5, but Jansen’s international headquarters, Unit A, has announced that the show has been extended by popular demand to September 2, 2017.
Jansen is regarded as the progenitor and pioneer of a new urban form of Expressionism. Raised bilingually by his German father and West Indian mother, Jansen was educated in Germany before cutting his artistic teeth in the New York graffiti scene of the 1980s, where he met WEST ONE. Then in the late 1990s, he developed his distinctive neo-expressionistic “Crossover” style, which references components of German Expressionism and Robert Rauschenberg’s “Combine Paintings.” Underlying themes in Jansen’s paintings include the traumata of the Gulf War (in which he served as a GI) and the desolate environment which is not only beset by natural disasters, but also suffers from humankind’s hapless exposure to epochal upheavals such as 9/11 and the real estate bubble.
Jansen is in the middle of a European traveling museum tour that started at the Triennale di Milano Museum in 2016 and continued with a show at the Kallmann Museum Ismaning earlier this year. The exhibition will travel to the Zitadelle Museum in Berlin in 2018, and be followed by a series of solo museum exhibitions in the United States and Europe.
The artist is represented by internationally-acclaimed galleries in London, Munich, Düsseldorf, San Francisco and Naples, Florida, and is the subject of two books (Decade, published by Skira Editore, and Aftermath, by Hirmer Verlag Munich) as well as an award-winning documentary Marcus Jansen Examine and Report (by Emmy winning filmmaker John Scholar).
Jansen’s works are collected in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), The New Britain Museum of American Art, The PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, the Housatonic Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
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Jansen world tours kicks off at La Triennale di Milan0 on September 2 (08-08-16)
Marcus Jansen’s long-awaited world tour kicks off in Italy at La Triennale di Milano. The exhibition consists of a selection of the paintings that are included in his monograph, Marcus Jansen DECADE, which is set for worldwide release beginning this September.
DECADE has been published by Skira Editore. Based in Milan, it is one of the world’s most respected art publishers, with titles including some of the most recognized names in contemporary art (e.g. Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel and Francis Bacon). Curated by Harvard fellow and former Gagosian curator Brooke Lynn McGowan and Rossella Farinotti in collaboration with Show Eventi Arte and Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter, DECADE features more than 120 works completed by Jansen between 2005 and 2015. The monograph also includes intimate photos and information about the artist together with contributions by London art dealer Steve Lazarides (BANKSY’s first dealer), renowned Milan art critic Paolo Manazza, Robert Rauschenberg’s longtime art production director Lawrence Voytek, and Noah Becker from New York’s Whitehot Magazine.
Eleven of the paintings featured in DECADE have been selected for display at the Triennale di Milano Museum as part of the XXI Triennale International Exhibition 2016 which only takes place once every 20 years. The Triennale International Exhibition brings a vast program of exhibitions, events, festivals and competitions to some of the most prestigious venues in Milan. Jansen’s exhibition will commence with an 11:30 a.m. press reception at La Triennale di Milano on September 2. The exhibition opens September 3 and continues through September 21.
In addition to the contemporaneous release of DECADE, the museum exhibition will also be denoted by the private screening on September 7 of Marcus Jansen: Examine & Report, the John Scoular documentary that debuted on April 7 at the Sixth Annual Fort Myers Film Festival (where it received Best Local Film honors). Like DECADE, the film contains interviews given by Steve Lazarides, Lawrence Voytek, Brooke McGowan and others.
Over the last two decades, Jansen has developed a uniquely personal approach that marries abstract expressionist landscapes with objective subject matter. Called a “cartographer of conflict,” Jansen is regarded as one of the leading figures in socio-politically charged paintings worldwide. His dystopian landscapes cleverly question authority and the tension between ruling class and those who are ruled. At the core of his work are human concerns, such as mapping the impact of war on the urban environment and addressing topics ranging from government and corporate surveillance to the military-industrial complex. The magical feel of his paintings suggests these are nowhere spaces, but rather landscapes of loss.
The German magazine Art PROFIL Das KUNST Magazine featured Jansen on its Augst cover, announcing his new collaborators and upcoming museum shows in Germany starting in Duesseldorf with Galerie Kellermann and a solo booth at Germany’s leading fair Art Karlsruhe 2017.
For more information on Jansen’s worldwide museum tour, Marcus Jansen: DECADE, and Marcus Jansen: Examine & Report, please visit his studio and world headquarters inside UNIT A Contemporary Art Space at 1922 Evans Avenue in Fort Myers, telephone 239-240-1053, or visit http://www.unitaspace.com, http://www.triennale.org, http://www.decadebook.com or http://www.examineandreport.com.
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UNIT A Contemporary Art Space celebrates 4-year anniversary in March (03-02-16)
On March 4, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space will celebrate its 4-year anniversary. The Unit houses the works of internationally-renowned artist Marcus Jansen. With more than 7,000 square feet of exhibition space, it is the largest private gallery in Southwest Florida.
The museum-like art space is located on Evans Street in downtown Fort Myers. It opens every first Friday to the public, and otherwise by appointment only. During its brief, four-year existence, the Unit has attracted collectors and art lovers from around the world, but on first Fridays, area collectors and art enthusiasts have the opportunity to preview Jansen’s newest offerings before they leave for shows, exhibitions, museums and buyer destinations around the globe.
The buzz this year is all about Marcus Jansen: Examine and Report, a 52-minute documentary by filmmaker John Scoular that has been selected to lead off this year’s Fort Myers Film Festival on April 7. Also in the gallery is Marcus Jansen: DECADE, a monograph containing over 120 works completed by Jansen between 2005 and 2015 that has just been released by SKIRA Editore publishing company in Milan, Italy, one of the most respected art book publishers in the world. The book contains contributions by Steve Lazarides, BANKSY’s first dealer who is also Jansen’s London agent, leading art critic Paolo Manazza from Milan, Robert Rauschenberg’s longtime art production director Lawrence Voytek, Noah Becker from Whitehot Magazine in New York and Brooke Lynn McGowan, Harvard Fellow and former Gagosian curator. Signed copies of the book are in the gallery and available for purchase.
For more information, please visit www.unitaspace.com or contact Lauren Morales at officeunitaspace
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Work by Rauschenberg sculptor Lawrence Voytek now available at UNIT A (10-16-15)
Lawrence Voytek was Robert Rauschenberg’s art fabricator. He is also prominently featured in Marcus Jansen – Examine & Report, a new documentary scheduled for release later this year. And a sampling of his work is now available at Jansen’s UNIT A Contemporary Art Space in the downtown Fort Myers River District.
Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Lawrence Voytek graduated with a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1982 with a degree in sculpture. He started working for Robert Rauschenberg in Captiva that same year. By then, Rauschenberg had been synthesizing found objects into his paintings for more than two decades, and he delegated to Voytek the task of finding new and novel ways of incorporating a continual stream of unconventional items into his artworks.
Not only did Voytek do all Rauschenberg’s welding and fabrication, he was in charge of research and development. “I would read samples of what industry was playing around with,” Voytek told Harvard Advocate writer Madeleine Schwartz in the fall of 2009. “Bob would see something and would say, ‘I want to play with this,’ and we would order it and he would start playing with it.”
“Voytek mastered material so that Rauschenberg didn’t have to,” Schwartz explains. “Welding, bending or just experimenting with anything industrial—from aluminum (he used over two tons in his 28 years working for Rauschenberg) to Renobond, a 3 mm thick skin coating for skyscrapers—Voytek shaped the substance of Rauschenberg’s hybrid inventions.”
Over the course of his tenure as Director of Art Production at Rauschenberg’s studio on Captiva, Voytek frequently consulted with renowned museums and art galleries around the globe on art installations, fabrication and restoration projects. But Rauschenberg noticed the quality and merit of Voytek’s own work, and he personally curated an exhibition of his protege’s art at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in Fort Myers.
Following Rauschenberg’s death in 2008, Voytek completed approved works, including some for the Obama sculpture garden, and today, Voytek’s work can be found in many important corporate and private collections, including that of Leo Castelli, Mr. and Mrs. Roy Lichtenstein, Sharon Stone, Meryl Streep and Hisachika Takhashi. Last year, he enjoyed a solo exhibition of 28 “fanciful artworks” at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery on the Lee campus of Florida SouthWestern State College (FSW).
Voytek also studied sculpture at the San Francisco Art Institute. He regularly consults on the subjects of art installation, fabrication and restoration with renowned national and international museums and galleries.
Voytek is also participating in the Marcus Jansen DECADE monograph, a ten-year retrospective being published by SKIRA Editore in Milan in January and which will be carried by museums worldwide.
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Jansen invited back to Art Verona (09-18-15)
The last time Fort Myers artist Marcus Jansen took part in Art Verona, good things followed. Really good things. He attracted European representation in the guise of Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter. And that led to a planned two-year multi-continent museum tour that kicks off later this year. So it will come as no surprise that Jansen will be returning to Art Verona when it opens October 16.
The 11th edition of Art Verona runs from October 16-19, 2015. Last year, the international fair experienced a 21 percent increase in the number of exhibitors and a concomitant 30 percent increase in attendance by collector and art enthusiasts. With the support of the National Association of Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries, Artistic Director Andrea Bruciati has made Art Verona the intersection of modern and contemporary art. Featuring innovative formats that prioritize research and experimentation, this year’s fair will highlight some of Italy’s most representative galleries, museums and art personalities. It will also be accompanied by a rich program of collateral events organized in conjunction with local arts institutions in a designed effort to create a highly articulated cultural experience.
In 2014, Jansen created quite a buzz as a noted cartographer of conflict. Among his many influences, Jansen’s experiences as a world traveler from the time he was a child, a Gulf War veteran, and his tutelage by members of the emerging and rebellious Graffiti art movement from his home town of New York City have all combined to vault Jansen to the pinnacle of the neo/urban expressionist art movement. Today, Jansen transforms paintings into critical social commentary in an era of globalization and pervasive new world order while exploring the human condition, often working paradoxes into his compositions and drawing parallels between historic and contemporary events and references.
Jansen was discovered and mentored by Jerome A. Donson, who at the time was in charge of traveling exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and responsible for preparing shows for artists like Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Willem de Kooning. Donson referred to Jansen’s work as being reminiscent of the Ash-Can School and referred to him as “the innovator of Modern Expressionism” in Jansen’s 2005 French-published catalog.
Milan art critic Paola Manazza agrees. “From Robert Henri, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky to Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jansen is an American, or better, a New Yorker to the marrow,” Manazza recently wrote. “I think he represents together with British artists Cecily Brown and Peter Doig, the best part of the great contemporary art that is rising in terms of criticism, audience.”
Art Verona is just the latest venue to include Jansen’s work. This month, he is one of just 30 artists who have been invited to participate in Cologne’s CityLeaks, which is Europe’s largest urban art biennale. His work has also recently been documented in a new film by John Scoular that will be released under the name Examine and Report. Among the gallerists, dealers, scholars and art critics interviewed for the film are Banksy’s first agent, Steve Lazarides, Robert Rauschenberg’s art production director, Lawrence Voytek, Hypo-Kunsthalle Munich Chairman Dieter Rampl, Whitehot Magazine founder and artist Noah Becker, and curator/art scholar Brooke Lynn McGowan. A ten-year retrospective catalog titled Decade is also due for publication later this year.
In addition to the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies Program, Jansen’s work can be found in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), The New Britain Museum of American Art, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
For more information, please visit www.unitaspace.com or contact Amanda Plummer at amadaunitaspace@gmail.com.
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Jansen among select group of American artists invited to show in CityLeaks 2015 in Cologne, Germany (09-12-15)
Fort Myers artist Marcus Jansen is among just a handful of American artists invited to participate in CityLeaks 2015, an urban art festival taking place in Cologne, Germany September 1-20.
CityLeaks is one of the leading urban art festivals in the world today. At this year’s festival, participating artists have created installations of large-scale murals and sculptures in public spaces in the Mulheim region of Cologne, Germany. Complementary to these projects, CityLeaks is also presenting an indoor exhibition under the theme of “the city does not exist” that raises questions about how spatial, social and emotional structures influence behavioral patterns. “The exhibiting artists play with the characteristics and roles of spatial diversity, which form the urban cosmos,” state the organizers. “Their work is as diverse as the urban space and the people inhabiting it.” More than thirty local and international artists from many different backgrounds (including painting, sculpture, photography, video, performance art and installation art) are taking part in the exhibition.
As the works included in the exhibition underscore, urban art is a flexible and encompassing discipline. Neo-expressionism, neo-concretism, pop art, concept art, Fluxus and surrealism all find themselves at the intersection of contemporary urban art, and through its festivals, CityLeaks seeks to highlight breaking developments, various trends and new media in addition to established styles and techniques typically associated with urban art.
Marcus Jansen is an internationally-renowned award-winning painter whose work can be found in the permanent collections of the New Britain Museum of American Art, The Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), the Housatonic Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Like artists Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Keith Haring before him, Jansen’s commissions include Absolut Vodka as well as Warner Brothers and FIFA. “From Robert Henri, Willem de Kooning and Arshile Gorky to Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jansen is an American, or better a New Yorker, to the marrow,” states Milan, Italy art critic Paolo Manazza. “I think he represents, together with British artists Cecily Brown and Peter Doig, the best part of the great contemporary art that is rising in terms of criticism, audience.”
Over the past decade, Jansen has participated in numerous international exhibitions, art fairs and festivals and is in the early stages of a two-year year international museum tour. He will also be the subject of a documentary titled “Examine and Report,” which is due out in November, as well as a monograph containing over 120 works completed by Jansen between 2005 and 2015 which is being published in December by the booSKIRA Editore publishing company in Milan, Italy, one of the most respected art book publishers in the world.
For more information, please visit www.unitaspace.com or contact Amanda Plummer at amadaunitaspace@gmail.com.
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Milan art publisher releasing monograph featuring a decade of Jansen work (08-29-15)
The SKIRA Editore publishing company in Milan, Italy is one of the most respected art book publishers in the world. It only publishes and globally distributes around 200 books each year. Its titles include some of the most recognized names in contemporary art, like Jean – Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon, and it has just added Marcus Jansen as their next project for global distribution to museums in Asia, Europe, South America, Australia, Canada and the United States.
The book will be Marcus Jansen – DECADE, and the monograph will include contributors like Steve Lazarides, BANKSY’s first dealer who is also Jansen’s London agent, leading art critic Paolo Manazza from Milan, Robert Rauschenberg’s longtime art production director Lawrence Voytek, Noah Becker from Whitehot Magazine in New York and Brooke Lynn McGowan, Harvard Fellow and former Gagosian curator. The book will contain over 120 works completed by Jansen between 2005 and 2015, with intimate photos and information about the artist and his now two decade career.
The book will be traveling alongside with Jansen’s museum world tour “Examine & Report,” which launches in Rome, Beijing and New York over the next two years and is being organized by his Milan Gallery,Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter.
The Decade monograph is scheduled for release at Jansen’s Fort Myers’ studio, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space, in December and an international release next year.
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Jansen documentary scheduled for release in November, 2015 (08-28-15)
“Marcus Jansen – Examine & Report” is the name of an upcoming contemporary art documentary spotlighting Fort Myers artist Marcus Jansen. It includes interviews with art scholar Brooke Lynn McGowan, Banksy dealer Steve Lazarides, Whitehot Magazine Editor Noah Becker, Robert Rauchenberg’s Art Production Director Lawrence Voytek, FGCU Gallery Director John Loscuito, Dieter Rampl, Liane Niedheidt and Hans G. Jansen. The Examine and Report Documentary is scheduled for release in late November.
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Marcus Jansen and his art subject of upcoming documentary film, ‘Examine & Report’ (07-14-15)
For two decades, Marcus Jansen has been exhibiting his work on an international scale. Reflecting the significance of his body of work and the critical acclaim it has garnered, Jansen’s work will be featured in a major museum travelling exhibition over the next four years. The tour has been organized by his European representatives, Gallery Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter in Milan, Italy, and launches this year. And now, the artist and his art will be the focus of an upcoming contemporary art documentary titled “Marcus Jansen – Examine & Report.”
In the documentary, the filmmaker interviews dealers, critics and collectors as they dissect Jansen’s work and motivation for painting while examining the direction of his unique socio- political urban influenced paintings that have been gaining more and more critical attention and acclaim over the recent years. The film is directed by award-winning filmmaker John Scoular who’s last feature film “Lunatics, Lovers & Poets” was released theatrically across the U.S. The film is being shot in three different locations, New York, London and Fort Myers, Florida, where the artist lives and works in his 14,000-square-foot studio loft space, Unit A Contemporary Art Space.
Art personalities appearing in the film include Steve Lazarides from Lazarides Rathbone, better known as street artist “BANKSY’s” first agent, as well as Lawrence Voytek, Robert Rauschenberg’s director of art production for over thirty years and who also advised some of the top institutions in the world such as the Guggenheim Museum, PACE and Gagosian Gallery NY. Special footage includes a first ever glimpse of the artist actually at work and an intimate look and interview with Jansen.
The film will debut in Rome at Jansen’s first European museum solo exhibition followed by exhibitions in Beijing, New York and other locations yet to be announced.
Jansen is an internationally-renowned award-winning painter whose work can be found in the permanent collections of the New Britain Museum of American Art, The Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), the Housatonic Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Like artists Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Keith Haring before him, Jansen’s commissions include Absolut Vodka as well as Warner Brothers and FIFA. “From Robert Henri, Willem de Kooning and Arshile Gorky to Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jansen is an American, or better a New Yorker, to the marrow,” states Milan, Italy art critic Paolo Manazza. “I think he represents, together with British artists Cecily Brown and Peter Doig, the best part of the great contemporary art that is rising in terms of criticism, audience.”
Jansen’s early childhood years were spent in the Bronx, New York. He was later transplanted to Europe and educated in Moenchengladbach, Germany, where he studied commercial painting and design. He’s a Gulf War Veteran and started selling his art from street corners between Prince Street & Broadway in Manhattan to international exhibitions and museum collections around the world after his discharge from the military.
Click here to see a trailer of the film: ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?
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Jansen’s ‘Faceless Inmate’ being featured in NYC ’60 Americans’ group show (05-17-15)
Marcus Jansen’s Faceless Inmate is being featured in a very important group show in New York City called 60 Americans.
60 Americans is a response to the ill-gotten gains of flipper based collectors, money corrupted and trend obsessed gallerists, shopping mall (puppy mill/factory) inspired art fairs, nepotism and favoritism of the made men and women of fast track MFA programs in America. This exhibition will offer an alternative perspective on what’s arguably relevant and important in the current landscape of American contemporary art. Curated by Whitehot Magazine Publisher Noah Becker as well as Terrence Sanders and Alexander Venet, 60 Americans is not your ordinary opening in New York.
The show opens Thursday, May 21 with a reception from 6-9 p.m and will be accompanied by a performance by Hayoon Jay Lee at 7:30 p.m. The exhibition runs through June 14, 2015 at Elga Wimmer New York City (Chelsea), 526 West 26th Street #310, New York City New York 10001.
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Invitation-only preview treats collectors to works included in ‘Examine and Report’ museum show and documentary (04-17-15)
“Examine and Report” is the title of a recent private viewing of select all-new works by internationally-renowned artist Marcus Jansen. The event was held on April 9 at Jansen’s 7,000-square-foot studio showcase, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space. Most of the works were in Jansen’s customary large scale format, and in the aggregate, these new offerings continue to push the boundaries of Jansen’s ongoing experimentation with various media and expand upon his socio-political commentary regarding the emerging shift of power and emerging new world order.
With topics ranging from corporate men in suits, faceless soldiers and war to installations that resemble apocalyptic times, the new work mirrors contemporary life while at the same time employing a unique gestural quality. Many of the paintings and installation works on display during the private viewing will be included in Jansen’s upcoming solo museum survey that will span Europe, Asia and North America over the next three years. Arranged by Jansen’s Milan representatives, Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter, the tour will launch in Rome later this year, before moving to Beijing and ending in New York City. Additional locations are also expected.
Jansen attended the April 9 by-invitation-only preview, as did some of Jansen’s biggest and most avid collectors. The event was filmed and footage may be included in a short art film documentary to be called Marcus Jansen – Examine and Report, which will also be the title of his museum opening in Rome. Already filmed, the documentary is being produced by Los Angeles filmmaker John Scholar, who has been documenting Jansen’s openings and projects for the last four years. The short film will be shown in Rome at his museum reception. The documentary will include prominent art critics and personalities as well as a glimpse of Jansen, close up.
A ten-year catalog titled Marcus Jansen – Decade is also planned. It will be contain the artist’s top one hundred works, as well as many personal photographs.
“Examine and Report” is on display at UNIT A through May 13, 2015. UNIT A is open to the public Tuesdays through Fridays from 1-4 p.m. Attendance is free and there is ample on-site parking. Please contact: Amanda at amandaunitaspace@gmail.com with questions and requests for additional information. UNIT A Contemporary Art Space is located at 1922 Evans Street in downtown Fort Myers.
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New works, new Jansen catalog on display at UNIT A during April 3 Art Walk (03-24-15)
Works will be on display by internationally-acclaimed painter Marcus Jansen at Unit A Contemporary Art Space from 6-10 p.m. during Art Walk on April 3. In addition to a medley of new and older works, Unit A will be releasing the artist’s latest catalog, featuring all 2014 works.
“It is the latest special edition hardcover with all 2014 work,” notes Administrative Director Amanda Plummer. “The edition is printed only 50 times and one copy is kept as the catalog raisonne’ for [2914]. All come signed by [Marcus] and are being reserved fast. The 2014 catalog is available from UNIT A and our partners in Milan, Italy.”
For orders and inquiries, please contact Amanda at amandaunitaspace@gmail.com.
Jansen is in the studio preparing museum works for a world tour launching this year with major museum solo exhibitions in Europe, China and the United States. Besides recently having work included in the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies Program, UNESCO in Paris France, Jansen has been included in Who’s Who in American Art and is collected in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), Russia, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taiwan, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, MO and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. For more information, please visit http://unitaspace.com/.
Unit A is located at 1922 Evans Street in downtown Fort Myers.
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Newest ‘Faceless’ portraits provide tantalizing clues about identity of anonymous male power brokers (03-11-13)
UNIT A Contemporary Art Space in downtown Fort Myers serves as artist Marcus Jansen’s international headquarters and viewing studio. On display there right now are two new works from Jansen’s Faceless series that represent an important next step in the evolution of this enigmatic body of work.
First, Jansen has gone large scale with these new portraits. They are as large, if not larger than life. Even more significantly, they are considerably more detailed than their predecessors.
First introduced in 2012, Faceless consists of a macabre gallery of metaphorically faceless business and banking power brokers who make unpublicized decisions that affect our lives from behind the closed doors of corporate board rooms – whether on Wall Street or some nameless boulevard elsewhere in the world. Heretofore, Jansen provided no clues about who these mysterious men might be. In the tradition of Russian Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich, Jansen expresses his highly-personal internal reaction to these business, banking and military leaders and what they are doing through a constellation of geometric forms, including circles, squares, rectangles, ovals and lines painted in a limited palette of monochromatic colors.
Faceless #3 is illustrative of Jansen’s message. Prior to being acquired by Russia’s PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, the painting was included in Anonymous, a group exhibition by 34 artists from around the globe that opened on the anniversary of JFK’s assassination in 2012. The exhibition explored the theme of anonymity in business, government and a social fabric increasingly dominated by social media, the blogosphere and internet marketing. Of particular interest to many of the artists participating in the show were modalities that serve to insulate corporate and government authorities from adverse reactions to their policies, practices and protocols, which characteristically advance their agendas at the expenses of the public’s health, liberty and privacy.
Jansen’s early portraits featured men that most people have never heard of and don’t know about. But while these seminal Faceless subjects were truly anonymous, Jansen’s new works provide tantalizing albeit cryptic clues designed to induce viewers to figure out who these oft-unscrupulous and morally-bankrupt master manipulators might be. “Now that people are familiar with the theme of these paintings, Marcus feels a responsibility to provide some imagery that will help viewers figure out who these anonymous puppet masters are,” discloses UNIT A’s Administrative Director Amanda Plummer.
Interestingly, though, each of his Faceless subjects has so far been definitively male.
“To this point, Marcus just doesn’t seem to think of women in that way,” muses Plummer. “He doesn’t see women as hyper-aggressive people you can’t trust.
While Plummer has the enviable advantage of talking shop with Jansen as he works on his compositions, it may also be that the omission of female Faceless subjects is a tacit recognition that few women today truly hold positions in business, banking and government that are powerful enough to be corrupting.
As a case in point, just seven of the 100 honorees included in the Newsweek Daily Beast Digital Power Index are women, and few women are viewed or even quoted as authoritative sources in news stories or as political pundits. They are also not in a position to influence our thinking as they don’t have a representative voice in media either. Of the top 250 domestic grossing films of 2012, only 9% of their directors were women, and just 16% of the writers, directors, producers, editors and cinematographers of the top grossing films of 2013 were female. According to the 2014 U.S. Women in Media Report, because of the lack of accomplished female role models, by the age of six, little girls are already seeing themselves as sexualized and subservient to men, and at this pace, women will not attain parity with the male counterparts in leadership roles in government, politics and industry until 2085. To put an exclamation point on the pervasive disparity between women and men in the film industry, not one woman was nominated for an Oscar as a writer, producer, director or cinematographer this year, including director Ava Du Vernay in spite of Selma’s nomination for Best Picture. (In fact, had she been nominated and won, Du Vernay would have been the first black woman and only the fifth female overall to win Best Director in the 87 year history of the Academy Awards.)
In a very real sense, women as a group are being oppressed by the anonymous male power structure right along with the rest of us. They are currently far too busy fighting for recognition, parity, equal pay and a place in the board room to manipulate r oppress the masses from behind the curtain.
Of course, this is just so much speculation and it remains to be seen whether some future Faceless subject turns out to be a female. But you can form you own opinions as you stand in front of these prospective masterworks. UNIT A is now open to the public from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. UNIT A is located at 1922 Evans Avenue in downtown Fort Myers. For more information, please visit www.unitaspace.com or contact Amanda Plummer at amadaunitaspace@gmail.com.
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UNIT A Contemporary Art Space celebrates 3-year anniversary in March (02-28-15)
In March, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space will celebrate its 3-year anniversary. The Unit houses the works of internationally-renowned artist Marcus Jansen. With more than 7,000 square feet of exhibition space, it is the largest private gallery in Southwest Florida.
The museum-like art space is located on Evans Street in downtown Fort Myers. It opens every first Friday to the public, and otherwise by appointment only. During its brief, three-year existence, the Unit has attracted collectors and art lovers from around the world, but on first Fridays, area collectors and art enthusiasts have the opportunity to preview Jansen’s newest offerings before they leave for shows, exhibitions and buyer destinations around the globe.
Orchestrating exhibitions, shows and sales of the artist’s works is one of the chief functions of Jansen’s international headquarters. The Unit closed a highly successful solo show in London that garnered rave reviews and red dots. Held at the leading urban contemporary art gallery in the world, Lazarides Rathbone, Whistleblower included 26 of Jansen’s works. The first work to sell at the show was a composition titled Homeland Security, which was coincidentally selected for the cover of the October edition of WGCU’s Expressions Magazine.
Homeland Security joins a host of Jansen works that have been featured in publications from Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and ArtNews to The New York Times, The Boston Globe, La Repubblica, Art Magazine ARTE, ESPOARTE, and New American Paintings No. 94. In 2013, Jansen and visual artists such as Kehinde Whiley, Shepard Fairey, Chuck Close, Jonathan Meese, Daniel Richter, Marlene Dumas and Takashi Murakami teamed up with hip-hop musicians that included Jay-Z, Ludacris and Lil Wayne in The Art Album by ART ON DEKZ, a collaboration that showcases the art behind hip-hop lyrics compared to the themes in contemporary visual art, and Jansen’s painting Spotlight on Education was chosen for the book’s cover. Homeland Security also appeared on the cover of the December issue of international contemporary publication Art Voices Magazine during Art Basel Miami Beach.
While he was across the pond, Jansen also had meetings in Milan and Rome with his European representatives, who are preparing a solo museum show at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACRO) in Rome in 2015.
During 2014, Jansen also exhibited work at Art Basel Miami Beach in December, ArtAspen International Art Fair in July (compliments of Patrajdas Contemporary, which is based in Ogden, Utah), Galerie L’angolo di Umberto Russo (compliments of Jansen’s Milan representatives, Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter), and the Pinacoteca Benedicto Calixto Museum in Sao Paulo, Brazil in May 15, which followed Jansen’s much-discussed introduction to the South American art scene by Roberta Britto Gallery on April 30. The opening for the Pinacoteca Benedicto Calixto Museum at event drew celebrities, Paparazzi, TV stations and more than a few noted museum academics.
Also of note in 2104, Jansen’s 2003 work Maneken Pis (48×36“) fetched the third highest price in at a Netherlands auction house (AAG Amsterdam) in June out of 226 lots by living painters, out-producing most Dutch painters as well as American artists that included Jeff Koons (Balloon Dog (Red) 1995), Keith Haring (a signed and dated 1989 Feltpen on paper) and David LaChapelle (Fish Stick: Devon Aoki in Agent Provocateur, London (1998), edition of 50).
Jansen holds the distinction of being Fort Myers’ most internationally-recognized painter. More, he is widely considered by art critics, commentators and media alike as one of the most important Expressive painters on the contemporary art scene. He is the first Florida resident to make the cover of the prestigious New American Painting publication, being chosen for that honor in 2011 by Dan Cameron, founder of the U.S. Biennial Inc., the largest biennial art show in the Unites States. Two years ago, Fort Myers Mayor Randy Henderson acknowledged Jansen’s contributions to the local art scene and economy with a “Key to the City” during an ABSOLUT JANSEN signing event after his commission from the ABSOLUT VODKA company, and last year, Jansen was given the “Face Award” by Gulf Business Magazine and D’Latinos Magazine during its annual ceremony on February 28, 2014 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Bonita.
Jansen is at the forefront of a new generation of artists exploring urban-influenced forms of expressionism, constructing landscapes with an embedded connection between street art and contemporary art disciplines. “Demonstrating a keen awareness of his surroundings, the artist creates a surreal atmosphere filled with subconscious revelations that foretell of a future fraught with consequence,” gallerist Steve Lazarides points out. “Violent brushstrokes, changing textures, and distinctive contrast of color reflect an explosive spontaneity that is the direct and raw effect of emotion. Jansen’s intellectually provocative and paradoxical work encourages discourse among viewers continuing his quest to dissect truth from fiction in a world with expanding questions and mystery.”
The themes that run through Jansen’s work are vast in scope and are indicative of his insightful ability to see the correlations that connect them. Genetically-modified food and animals, increasing government and corporate surveillance, and faceless government, banking and industrial power brokers with no accountability to the increasingly powerless billions caught in their machinations are just a few of the recurring themes that unite his motifs, which evince a deeply-rooted spirituality that becomes evident by the artist’s willingness to explore the unknown.
For more information, please visit www.unitaspace.com or contact Amanda Plummer at amadaunitaspace@gmail.com.
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Never-before-seen Jansen works to debut at UNIT A during March Art Walk (02-28-15)
Never before seen works by internationally-recognized painter Marcus Jansen will be on display at UNIT A Contemporary Art Space, which will be open for a public reception during Art Walk from 6-10 p.m. This month’s beverages at Unit A will be sponsored by ‘Old Soul Brewing Company’. Make sure to stop by and try a hand crafted brew!
Marcus Jansen is in the studio preparing museum works for a world tour launching this year with major museum solo exhibitions in Europe, China and the United States. Besides recently having work included in the U.S. Department of State, Art in Embassies Program, UNESCO in Paris, France, Jansen is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and is collected in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) in Russia, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. He is represented in the UK, Italy and the United States.
Also opening on the weekend of March 6-7 is the 2015 SCOPE Art Fair in New York featuring Jansen’s Souls in Gaza. The fair opens Friday, March 6, with a 6-10 p.m. reception and continues March 7-8 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. You can find Marcus in booth A43, represented by ArtVoices – Terrence Sanders with Untitled Projects.
For more information please visit http://unitaspace.com or contact Amanda Plummer at amadaunitaspace@gmail.com.
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Beijing’s Today Art Museum to host solo Marcus Jansen show in 2016 (02-21-15)
Internationally-acclaimed local artist Marcus Jansen will enjoy his first solo exhibition in Asia at the Today Art Museum in Beijing in 2016. Arranged by his Italian agent in Rome and his gallery representatives Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter in Milan, the May 9- 23, 2016 exhibition is only one part of an ambitious world tour that starts at a major museum in Rome this year and ends with a solo exhibition in one of New York City’s most important museum (the identity of which is yet to be announced).
The Today Art Museum in Beijing is a private, non-profit museum located in Beijing. It was founded in 2002 by Zhang Baoquan and is guided by Alex Gao, who began his service as Executive Director in August of 2013. Because the museum’s primary mission is to support the development of Chinese contemporary art based on an internationalized vision and contemporary ideology, it promotes exhibitions and events that provide meaningful cultural exchange and dialogue between Chinese and non-Chinese artists and organizations. As the country’s first non-for-profit, non-governmental art museum, the Today Art Museum is dedicated to establishing an appropriate development strategy for museums of its kind within a Chinese context.
Jansen’s selection for a solo show at Today Art Museum is further recognition of the increasing notice that collectors in the United States and Europe, in particular, have taken of his work in recent years. Not surprisingly, the demand for his works has tripled since the announcement.
Born in New York City and raised and educated in Germany, Jansen’s works are informed by his extensive worldwide travels and his service in the United States Army during the First Gulf War in 1990. “His work reflects an urban dystopia that is simultaneously surreal, reflective, puzzling, and perhaps–though hopefully not–prophetic,” writes Naples Noteworthy. “With a single painting, Jansen makes more of a socio-political statement than many political scientists manage to convey in their graduate theses.”
His most recent International prize was being selected as a finalist for the Fleurieu Art Prize 2013 Biennale in Australia, which enjoys the distinction of being the highest valued landscape painting prize anywhere in the world. Other noteworthy exhibitions include Over/Current/Overview 8 at the Tampa Museum of Art in 2006, the 12th International Print & Drawing Biennial at The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art Taiwan, and the Boca Raton Museum of Art Annual in 2012. In addition, Jansen’s work was selected by Dan Cameron (Chief Curator at the Orange County Museum of Art) for the cover of the prestigious national alumni publication, New American Paintings No. 94.
Besides having work included in the U.S. Department of State Art in Embassies Program, UNESCO in Paris France and being listed in Who’s Who in American Art, Jansen is proud to have paintings included in the permanent collections of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) in Russia, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art in Taiwan and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. Jansen is also one of a new generation of ABSOLUT VODKA artists, whose alumni include Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Keith Haring.
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Marcus Jansen represents United States in Art Warning the World (02-15-15)
Art Warning the World is a global art project created by French visual artist Klaus Guingand in the defense of freedom. It features 202 works, 202 videos and 202 photos created by 202 visual artists representing 200 different countries and 135 national languages. These works will be published soon online, on French TV and at an-yet-to-be-announced location.
Guingand started Art Warning the World in 2011 and invited one artist per country to join the project. Widely known since the 1980s, Guingand has worked with such contemporary icons as Pierre Restany, Jasper Johns, Leo Castelli, Claudia Schiffer, Steven Spielberg, Kirk Douglas and many more.
New York City native Marcus Jansen is representing the United States. “I am very excited to be a part of something so productive in a time where our freedoms and liberties everywhere are under attack in the name of (security),” states Jansen. “Klaus is a former solder like myself, so it was only natural for me to want to be a part of his project.”
Jansen fought in the Iraq invasion during the first Gulf War. Widely known for his socio-political commentary and sweeping, large-scale urban expressionist landscapes, Jansen was one of the first artists that Klaus invited to join Art Warning the World in 2011. Art Warning the World is a good fit for Jansen, whose recent Whistleblower solo show at London’s renowned Lazarides Gallery sounds its own clarion call for people to take notice of the ways in which governments and industry seek to keep people in the dark about all sorts of items and issues that adversely affect their daily lives. Looking forward, Jansen is getting ready for a worldwide museum tour that will span 2015 and 2016, with solo shows in in Europe, China and the United States.
“Marcus Jansen produces violently exquisite landscapes, haunting combines, and disturbing portraiture, whose originality and powerful social critique rival the aesthetic mastery and intellectual engagement of the greatest artists of the 20th century,” writes Art FUSE, New York, and Naples Noteworthy in Florida calls Jansen “one of the most important American painters of our times.”
Besides being included in the U.S. Department of State Art in Embassies Program and UNESCO in Paris, France, Jansen’s work can be found in permanent museum collections in the United States, South America, Asia, and Europe, including the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) in Russia, The New Britain Museum of American Art, Brazil’s Museo Nacional de Brasília , The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. Jansen is also one of the ABSOLUT VODKA artists, joining such esteemed predecessors as Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.
The work that Jansen created and submitted for Art Warning the World is titled Flag. The original is available for purchase at the Paris exhibition. However, limited edition prints can be obtained at Jansen’s international headquarters and studio in Fort Myers, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space. For more information, please visit www.unitaspace.com or www.art-warning-the-world.net.
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Marcus Jansen’s largescale ‘Encounter’ on display at Art Palm Beach January 21-25 (01-16-15)
Marcus Jansen will participate in Art Palm Beach, Florida Gold Coast’s premier cultural event and art fair that will take place in the Palm Beach Convention Center from January 21-25. Now in its 18th consecutive year, Art Palm Beach presents groundbreaking work that has been carefully curated from over 75 of the best galleries around the world. Over the years, the fair has come to be recognized as the place to discover emerging art trends, innovative design, new technologies, and performance art that you simply won’t find anywhere else.
Jansen’s 108 x 88 inch museum-size painting, The Encounter, will be on display at the fair from Wednesday, January 21, through Sunday, January 25.
Jansen can also be found on the cover of this month’s Art Voices Magazine, which represents the magazine’s seventh anniversary issue.
Besides Jansen’s work being recently included in the U.S. Department of State, Art in Embassies Program, UNESCO in Paris, France, Jansen is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and is in the permanent collections of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) in Russia, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art in Taiwan and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Jansen is represented in the U.K., Italy and the U.S. His world exhibition tour will launch 2015 with major museum solo exhibitions in Europe, China and the United States.
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Fresh from ‘Whistleblower,’ Jansen’s a big hit at FGCU Storytellers Creative Conference (11-23-14)
Marcus Jansen returned on November 3 from the packed opening of his long-anticipated Whistleblower solo show in London that garnered rave reviews and red dots. Held at the leading urban contemporary art gallery in the world, Lazarides Rathbone, Whistleblower included 26 of Jansen’s works.
The first piece that sold was Homeland Security, a 48 x 48 inch the painting that was featured on the cover of two U.S. magazines, FGCU’s Expressive Magazine and ART Voices. Although the original is now off the market, Lazarides Rathbone is releasing the work in the United Kingdom in limited edition signed prints, although a handful of prints will be available exclusively through Jansen’s international headquarters at UNIT A Contemporary Art Space in Fort Myers. Gallery owner Steve Lazarides is also keeping for his private collection.
While he was across the pond, Jansen also had meetings in Milan and Rome with his European representatives, who are preparing a solo museum show for the artist in 2015.
Back in the U.S.A., Jansen gave an in-depth interview to Naples Noteworthy, which called the artist “one of the most important American painters of our time” in a full-page feature that highlights some of Jansen’s accomplishments over the past 30 years. Jansen followed that interview with a guest appearance at the Storytellers Creative Conference at Florida Gulf Coast University. Organized by Naples’ Bill Barnett and hosted by Gallery Director John Loscuito, the event was well attended and the questions posed to Jansen during the Q&A seemed to have no end. Jansen dedicated the talk to his friend and former FGCU art professor Carl Schwartz, who founded the art program at FGCU years ago. As tribute, Jansen played exclusive video footage that was taped during Jansen’s 2010 “A Painters Allegory” documentary by Eric Raddatz, Flip Minott and Edward Clay.
For information regarding Marcus Jansen, his art and his events, please contact UNIT A Contemporary Art Space through Amanda Plummer at amandaunitaspace.com.
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Fresh from success of ‘Whistleblower’ opening in London, Jansen to be at UNIT A for November Art Walk (10-30-14)
Following Marcus Jansen’s packed show at Lazarides Gallery in London and his recent mention in Noteworthy Naples as “one of the most important American Painters of our times,” his studio, and international headquarters, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space, will be open for a public reception during Art Walk from 6-10 p.m. on November 7, 2014, and if you’re lucky, you may even find him in the house during a portion of the evening. As a combat veteran himself, Jansen will also have piece in the ‘Art by Veterans” show opening on November 7 at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center to benefit the Caloosahatchee Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. (That show closes November 21, 2014.)
For visitor convenience, there is a new Art Walk trolley taking guests from First Street to the more than 7,000-square-foot contemporary art space. Look for the trolley stops downtown that will take you to UNIT A every month during Art Walk for free!
Jansen will be the sponsoring artist for the new Art Walk Membership merchandise. Debuting at Art Walk on December 5, the collection will include an exclusive button, poster, and t-shirt with Jansen’s artwork available for purchase. One hundred percent of the proceeds derived from sale of this merchandise at UNIT A will go to benefit Fort Myers Art Walk.
Besides Jansen’s work recently being included in the U.S. Department of State Art in Embassies Program, UNESCO, in Paris France, Jansen is listed in the Who’s Who in American Art and is collected in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), Russia, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The Museo Nacional de Brasília , Brazil, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taiwan and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. He is represented in the UK, Italy and the United States. His world exhibition tour will launch 2015 with major museum solo exhibitions in Europe, China and the United States
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‘Whistleblower’ solo show opens to acclaim at London’s Lazarides Rathbone Gallery (10-30-14)
The long anticipated London solo show by Marcus Jansen titled “Whistleblower” opened Thursday, October 23. 2014. It drew over 100 visitors in just the first hour. The internationally-acclaimed New York native has been gaining increasing international attention and Lazarides Rathbone is the latest prominent gallery to recognize the painter’s accomplishments and growing reputation. Lazarides Rathbone is regarded by many as the leading urban contemporary art gallery in the world, and its owner, Steve Lazarides, introduced world-renowned street artist BANKSY to the world.
Jansen attended the show, and signed catalogs as well as two new limited edition prints made in house by Lazarides that will be officially released on November 20. To request a catalog or the remaining list of works available from the show, please contact Amanda Plummer at amandaunitaspace@gmail.com.
Jansen’s 2015 shows will include a world tour with solo museum shows in the United States, Europe and China.
For more information, please visit http://unitaspace.com/
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WGCU’s Amy Tardiff hosts Marcus Jansen on Gulf Coast Live (10-15-14)
Internationally known modern urban expressionist painter Marcus Jansen was Amy Tardiff’s guest today on WGCU. Jansen was on hand to discuss his impending lecture in the Florida Gulf Coast University Cohen Center Ballroom on November 5 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Free tickets should be reserved at scaconference.com. Jansen and Tardiff also talked at length about Jansen’s upcoming shows in London, Rome, Beijing and New York City.
Jansen explores the contemporary human condition. He may be considered one of the most exciting new painters to emerge at the early part of the 21st century and has created an international following. His UNIT A space in downtown Fort Myers houses selected works, hosts educational talks and art documentary screenings, and is available for corporate meetings. Please click here to listen to the broadcast.
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Jansen makes cover of WGCU’s ‘Expressions’ magazine (09-22-14)
Works by Marcus Jansen have been featured in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Art News, The New York Times, La Repubblica and The Boston Globe. Last year, Jansen and visual artists such as Kehinde Whiley, Shepard Fairey, Chuck Close, Jonathan Meese, Daniel Richter, Marlene Dumas and Takashi Murakami teamed up with hip-hop musicians that include Jay-Z, Ludacris and Lil Wayne in The Art Album by ART ON DEKZ, a collaboration that showcases the art behind hip-hop lyrics compared to the themes in contemporary visual art, and Jansen’s painting Spotlight on Education was chosen for the book’s cover. And now, Jansen’s Homeland Security has been selected for the cover of the October edition of WGCU’s Expressions Magazine. Jansen will also appear on the cover of the international contemporary publication Art Voices Magazine during the upcoming December issue during Art Basel Miami Beach.
A former soldier, Jansen started his career selling paintings on the streets of New York after previously studying graphics and commercial painting in Moenchengladbach, Germany in the 1980s. Jansen’s rise to artistic fame came after a chance meeting with former MoMA Travelling Exhibitions Director Jerome A. Donson, whose resume included preparing major exhibitions for the likes of Robert Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning. Donson referred to Jansen’s work as being reminiscent of the Ash-Can School and the innovator of modern expressionism.
Since then, Jansen has participated in various international museum exhibitions and bienniales, including winning the Laguna Art Prize 2013 in Venice, Italy, the 12th International Print & Drawing Bienniale in 2007 at the Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and an exhibition in 2013 at the PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art in Russia. Besides having his work included in the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies program, his museum collections span the United States, South America, Europe and Russia. Notable collections featuring Jansen’s work include the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), the New Britain Museum of American Art, Museo Nacional de Brasilia, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
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London’s Lazarides gallery thrilled to present Jansen’s ‘Whistleblower’ to British art market (09-22-14)
For more than a decade, Marcus Jansen has created rich gestural paintings that draw attention to the troubling consequences of a puzzling, fast-paced world dominated by faceless, anonymous government leaders, bankers and corporate denizens who lack accountability to anyone, especially the increasingly powerless masses subject to their whim and caprice. In a sense, Jansen serves as a whistleblower – as “one who reveals something covert” or “who seeks to stop an ongoing covert action.” And on October 24, work from Jansen’s Whistleblower series goes on exhibit at London’s Lazarides gallery, where thousands of beleaguered Brits will be invited to contemplate such complex socio-political themes as unauthorized and intrusive government and corporate surveillance, genetically modified plants and animals, and life in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world.
“Lazarides is thrilled to present Whistleblower, the latest showcase of dynamic paintings and mixed-media landscape installations by New York born artist Marcus Jansen,” states the gallery in its press release announcing the show. “This new series of complex constructions comment largely on socio-political issues of today, suggesting depth and movement within a flat plane using dramatic contrasts of color, form, and texture. The artist leads his audience on a journey across multiple views of abstract narrative scenes, combining action painting with objective subject matter while playing with space, light and perspective.”
Jansen is at the forefront of a new generation of artists exploring urban-influenced forms of expressionism, constructing landscapes with an embedded connection between street art and contemporary art disciplines. “Demonstrating a keen awareness of his surroundings, the artist creates a surreal atmosphere filled with subconscious revelations that foretell of a future fraught with consequence,” Lazarides points out. “Violent brushstrokes, changing textures, and distinctive contrast of color reflect an explosive spontaneity that is the direct and raw effect of emotion. Jansen’s intellectually provocative and paradoxical work encourages discourse among viewers continuing his quest to dissect truth from fiction in a world with expanding questions and mystery.”
The themes that run through Jansen’s work are vast in scope and indicative of his insightful ability to see the correlations that connect them. “In his work lies a deeply-rooted spirituality that becomes evident by his willingness to explore the unknown, bringing out attention to the things we would normally overlook while reminding us that within our struggle resides beauty,” concludes Lazarides.
Lazarides is hosting a private viewing on October 23, with the exhibition opening to the public on October 24. Whistleblower will run through November 20. Lazarides is located at 11 Rathbone Place in London’s Fitzrovia art district. For more information, please contact Gallery Director Laura Cook at laura@lazinc.com or Amanda Plummer at UNIT A Contemporary Art Space by emailing amandaunitaspace@gmail.com or visiting www.unitaspace.com.
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Jansen’s long-awaited ‘Whistleblower’ show opens at London’s Lazarides Rathbone October 23 (08-30-14)
The long-awaited Marcus Jansen Whistleblower exhibition opens in London in October. The show will serve as the latest artistic commentary in a series of two and three dimensional aerial view constructs by the award-winning, internationally-acclaimed artist.
The exhibition was arranged by art dealer Steve Lazarides, who is widely credited with having introduced BANKSY to the art world. After Jansen’s appearance in 2013 at ART 14, one of London’s newest international art fairs, the upcoming exhibition will show video documentary footage along with 25 Jansen works that include pieces from his 2011-initiated “Aerial Views” series.
Jansen’s aerial pieces are informed by the time he spent in Iraq during the first Gulf War. Since leaving the military, Jansen has become one of America’s leading painters. With a world view informed by his experiences as a world traveler since a child (he grew up in the Bronx and was educated in Moenchengladbach, Germany), Jansen continues his quest to separate truth from fiction in a world filled with questions and mystery, taking viewers from one captivating scene to another. In this vein, Whistleblower responds provocatively to on-going socio-political issues and propaganda disseminated by the government and media alike, while playing with space, light and perspective in unique compositions that seductively combine expressionism, surrealism, and action painting with objective subject matter, a task deemed impossible by Ad Reinhardt sixty-some years ago.
“What initiated it for him, was the graffiti on the side of subway trains when he traveled from Bronx to Manhattan to sell his work on the street,” wrote Jerome A. Donson, an art historian who served as former director of the American Vanguard Exhibitions Europe 1961. “This is somewhat reminiscent of Jackson Pollock learning to kneel with the hopi Indians and throw sand to make sand pictures,” adds Donson, who worked closely with Pollock, Willem De Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Franz Kline and other action painters while arranging international exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. “The innovation may have been the beginning of Abstract Expressionism.”
Jansen is considered a pioneer among a new generation of artists who have been exploring urban-influenced forms of expressionism through gestural landscape painting over the course of the past two decades, using largely the connection between street art and contemporary art disciplines. Jansen’s techniques include what is referred to by retired Florida Gulf Coast University art professor Carl Schwartz as his “Push-Pull” effect- a term first coined by Hans Hofmann to suggest depth and movement within a flat plane using contrasts of color, form, and texture. But Jansen’s work is more instinctive.
With a keen awareness of his surroundings, Jansen creates a surreal urban-like atmosphere filled with subconscious revelations that foretell of a future fraught with consequence. Violent brushstrokes, changing textures, and distinctive contrast of color reflect an explosive spontaneity that is the direct and raw effect of emotion. Jansen’s intellectually-provocative and paradoxical work encourages discourse among viewers. The themes that run through Jansen’s work are vast in scope and are indicative of his insightful ability to see the correlations that connect them. Genetically-modified food, increasing surveillance, and global dominance are just a few of the recurring themes that unite his motifs, which evince a deeply-rooted spirituality that becomes evident by the artist’s willingness to explore the unknown.
“Jansen brings our attention to the things we would normally overlook, while reminding us that within our struggle resides beauty,” says writer/artist Cindy Jane.
Jansen’s most recent achievement was his selection by Saatchi Gallery Director and Chief Executive Nigel Hurst as a finalist for the Fleurieu Art Prize 2013 Biennale in Australia, which is the highest valued landscape painting prize offered anywhere in the world. He is listed in Who’s Who of American Art and collected by museums in the United States, South America, Russia and Europe, including the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), Russia, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The Museo Nacional de Brasília , Brazil, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taiwan and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Jansen has participated in various international museum exhibitions and biennials, including winning the Laguna Art Prize 2013 (Venice, Italy), the 12th International Print & Drawing Biennial in 2007 at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and The PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art show “Anonymous” in Russia in 2013.
Whistleblower will take place at the Lazarides Rathbone location in London and will open October 23, 2014, with Jansen in attendance and visiting London for the third time. A special print edition catalogue will also be published for the show. The exhibition is the first in a series of shows that will include Jansen’s first museum solo show in Europe at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACRO) in Rome in May/June 2015.
You can visit with the artist and enjoy first view of the works Jansen is taking to London during Art Walk on September 5, 2014 at UNIT A Contemporary Art Space in Fort Myers, which functions as the artist’s studio and international headquarters. UNIT A is located at 1922 Evans Street in downtown Fort Myers. For more information, please contact Amanda Plummer at amandaunitaspace@gmail.com or visit www.unitaspace.com.
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Upcoming solo show at Museum of Contemporary Art Rome latest indicia of Marcus Jansen’s growing international recognition and acclaim (08-13-14)
The Museum of Contemporary Art Rome is the oldest museum in Italy. In 2015, the MACRO is giving its stamp of approval to local artist Marcus Jansen when it hosts a solo exhibition of his work. In fact, the MACRO’s curator has even invited Jansen for a short Villa residency in Rome to produce special works in Italy.
Nestled among 19th-century apartment buildings, the MACRO was fashioned between 1999 and December of 2010 by French architect Odile Decq from a disused Peroni beer plant that was in active production until 1971. One of the few examples of industrial archaeology in the Italian capital, the building was designed at the beginning of the twentieth century by Gustavo Giovannoni. Its permanent collection includes a selection of some of the most significant expressions of the Italian art scene since the 1960s. Among other things, it houses an archive of the works of the postmodern painter and collagist Mario Schifano. MACRO aims to be more active, daring and fun than the stodgy museums that dot the Italian landscape. For example, it boasts a daring rooftop terrace, catwalks and mirrored-wall lavatories which feature translucent plastic sinks that flash different neon/UV colors as you use them. In the car park, you can see the remains of an ancient Roman house unearthed during the restoration.
The exhibition, whose dates are yet to be announced, is being coordinated by Jansen’s Milan gallery representatives, Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter, which hosted his first solo show in Italy in November of 2013 after Jansen won the Arte Laguna Prize in Venice. The show caught the attention of Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, prompting Italy’s leading art magazine, Arte and Espoarte , to ask in a headline, “Marcus Jansen, a new star is born?”
Prior to the MACRO show, Jansen will have a solo show opening October 23, 2014 in London, which is being organized by Lazarides Rathbone, which gained fame as Banksy’s dealer.
Jansen possesses the stature of Fort Myers’ most internationally-recognized painter. More, he is widely considered by art critics, commentators and media alike as one of the most important Expressive painters on the contemporary art scene. He is the first Florida resident to make the cover of the prestigious New American Painting publication. He was chosen for that honor in 2011 by Dan Cameron, founder of the U.S. Biennial Inc., the largest biennial art show in the Unites States.
Jansen’s career spans more than 30 years. He got his start in art when at the urging of graffiti art legend WEST ONE, Jansen began sketching and painting on walls in Europe after his return from a trip home to his birth place in New York City. But it was a 2005 solo exhibition in Paris at Art Au Garage called “Voice of a Generation” that first garnered him international attention and recognition. Since then, he has been collected by museums in Asia, South America, Russia and the United States, been chosen by Absolut Vodka for their exclusive Absolut Blank worldwide marketing campaign, and has won several prestigious international art competitions. Most recently, Jansen was chosen as a finalist in last year’s Fleurieu Art Prize Biennale in Australia by Nigel Hurst, Director and Chief Executive of Saatchi Gallery London. The Fleurieu Art Prize is the highest valued landscape painting prize anywhere in the world. At his first international auction in the Netherlands earlier this year, Jansen’s work outperformed paintings by artists like Jeff Koons and Keith Haring.
Locally, Jansen skyrocketed to fame as a result of his solo show, A Painter’s Allegory, at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center in 2011. More than 4,500 people attended the unforgettable and flamboyant opening reception which, according to director Jim Griffith, was “the most attended art reception in the history of the Center.” Area art lovers, Jansen enthusiasts and collectors can preview new works and old standards at Jansen’s studio headquarters, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space, which is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and from 6 to 10 p.m. on the first Friday of each month during Art Walk.
For more information, please email unitaspaceinfo@gmail.com.
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Jansen work to be exhibited at ArtAspen International Art Fair July 31-August 3 (07-24-15)
World-renowned artist Marcus Jansen will be exhibiting at ArtAspen International Art Fair for the first time since 2007. His work will be shown by Patrajdas Contemporary, which is based in Ogden, Utah.
Patrajdas Contemporary plans on showcasing selectively-released works at Booth # B7 from the fair’s opening on July 31 through its closing on August 3. 2014. A limited number of complimentary VIP tickets are available at Jansen’s international headquarters in Fort Myers, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space. If you are interested in attending the fair, please email unitaspaceinfo@gmail.com. (Tickets will be awarded on a first come, first served basis.)
The 2013 edition of ArtAspen drew scores of board members from Aspen Institute, MoMA, the Palm Springs Art Museum, San Antonio Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art , Museum of Fine Art in Houston, Anderson Ranch, Harwood Museum of Art, Aspen Art Museum , CU Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, and many other prestigious institutions. The opening night VIP preview was attended by more than 700 serious art collectors, with the show’s four-day attendance totaling 2,425 art lovers, a 10% increase from 2012. Estimated total art sales also rose a reported 20% from 2012, with the 30 participating galleries reporting total sales in the $3-5million level, including on-site and immediately pending post show sales activity.
Says fair Executive Director /Founder Rick Friedman, “ArtAspen cemented it’s status as America’s ultimate boutique fair by attracting hundreds of renowned art philanthropists, museum trustees and board members, curators, and influential art patrons from around the nation. Aspenites are highly discriminating and accustomed to the highest level in their cultural productions, so we were pleased to present a world-class fine art fair in a friendly, intimate yet luxurious setting.”
ArtAspen 2013 attracted scores of A-list collectors and active art patrons who enthusiastically participated in the flurry of art acquisition action. Spotted at the fair were such notables as Linda Resnick, Jamie Tisch, Alex and Gale Merriam, Ronnie Greenberg, NBA star Dwight Howard with art advisor Michelle Rosenfeld, Helene Galen, Stephane Stoke, Richard and Kathryn Rabinowitz, Leigh and Reggie Smith, Frank and Doreen Herzog, Mary Ralph Lowe, Ann Korologos, Lee and Mel Eagle, Ann Cook and Charles Moss, Mark Ostrofsky, Bruce Barnes, Jeffrey D.J. Kallenberg, and Nabuto Kang.
ArtAspen International will be Jansen’s first art fair this year. Jansen will also exhibit work at Art Basel Miami Beach later this year. Last month, Jansen’s Milan representatives, Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter, arranged a solo exhibition of his work at Galerie L’angolo di Umberto Russo, where attendees included the director of the Museion Museum (www.museion.it/) Bolzano and renowned lawyer and art patron Umberto Russo. The public opening took place June 25. His London representatives Lazarides Rathbone (who were Banksy’s first dealers) will be featuring Jansen in a much-anticipated solo show in London later this year, with his first major museum solo show in Europe yet to be announced.
Jansen introduces new work at his 7,000-square-foot UNIT A studio on Evans Avenue in downtown Fort Myers on the first Friday of each month during Art Walk. The next edition of Art Walk takes place from 6-10 p.m. on Friday, August 1. Jansen’s Milan, Italy exhibition catalog will be released shortly and may be available for inspection at that time. UNIT A Contemporary Art Space is located at 1922 Evans Avenue, Fort Myers, FL 33901.
For more information please email unitaspaceinfo@gmail.com.
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New work from Marcus Jansen’s ‘Aerial Views’ series on view tonight at UNIT A (07-04-14)
In 2011, the first Marcus Jansen “Aerial Views” 3D constructs were introduced at Art Basel Miami Beach with great success. This Friday, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space provides a sneak peek at new works from the series during July 4 Art Walk.
The series evolution is actually quite intriguing. A collector visiting Jansen in his studio took note of one of Jansen’s color palettes, an old table top he uses for mixing paint. “You know what? This is really interesting,” the collector remarked, prompting Jansen to view the mounds of paint accumulated on the wood surface with fresh eyes. Its topography reminded him of a front line combat zone he’d flown over in a chopper during his Gulf War tour in 1991. On the desert landscape below, he could see the devastation that had been wrought by U.S. forces. And that mnemonic connection gave impetus to a new series of 3-D works that Jansen calls aerial views.
“I’d been painting largely two-dimensional landscapes from traditional angles for the past 15 years,” Jansen told an Artist Gallery Talk audience at Florida Gulf Coast University on February 23, 2012, “and thought it would be interesting to provide viewers with a different perspective.”
So Jansen decided to see what he could carve out of the experience, which seemed plausible given that he rarely pre-plans his compositions, preferring instead to explore the theme and subject matter as the painting process unfolds. His first two aerial pieces sold as soon as Jansen showed them, which encouraged Jansen to do four more, and the 3-dimensional work he took to Art Basel, Rock a bye baby was similarly well-received.
“The [Aerial View] paintings are still ambiguous, perhaps even more immediate and raw, and could be mounted horizontally as a table (as his gallerists did for the first time at Art Basel) or [hung] on walls for viewers to experience what at first sight may appear chaotic but yet in order,” Jansen writes of the series. “My subject matter continues to investigate what is happening in the current century and follows a fast moving transformation of the world order and the condition of populists and earth, and reflects my personal experience through landscape gestural paintings.”
“It’s a new venue,” Jansen summed up in his FGCU Gallery Talk. “I’m exploring it. I like it. It’s very spontaneous. (Most of my work is spontaneous.) It’s more impulsive. More like action painting.”
The gallery will be open for Art Walk on July 4 from 6 to 10 p.m. It is located at 1922 Evans Street in downtown Fort Myers. For more information, please contact Amanda Plummer at amandaunitaspace@gmail.com or visit www.unitaspace.com.
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The reviews of Marcus Jansen’s Italian exhibition are in ….. (06-26-14)
To the right are reviews in the Italian newspaper Alto Adige and the German newspaper Tageszeitung from the June 11 opening of Marcus Jansen’s show, Arte in Casa, at the Galerie L’angolo di Umberto Russo, where attendees included the director of the Museion Museum (www.museion.it/) Bolzano and renowned lawyer and art patron Umberto Russo. The public opening took place yesterday (June 25).
This is the second solo exhibition that Jansen has enjoyed in Italy in less than a year. The first took place in Milan last November/December and served as a bridge between Jansen’s debut at ART VERONA International Art Fair on October 10 – 14 and his first one-man museum exhibition in Europe. A catalogue commemorating the Milan show was released at the Bolzano show, which came about as a result of an invitation received from one of Italy’s most renowned collector circles, which boasts an exclusive guest list containing 150 VIP collectors. The catalogue features 64 pages of full-color prints of Jansen’s paintings along with an essay by Italian art critic and author of “street art sweet art,” Alessandro Riva.
The official documentary by Antonio Deluca titled “Marcus Jansen in Milan” was also screened at the opening reception.
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Jansen painting auctioned by AAG in Netherlands outproduces Koons and Hirst (06-16-14)
The first international auction of a Marcus Jansen painting took place over the weekend in the Netherlands. In spite of Jansen having never exhibited in the Netherlands before, Jansen’s 2003 work titled Maneken Pis (48×36“) fetched the third highest price for the 226 lots by living painters, out-producing most Dutch painters as well as American artists that included Jeff Koons (Balloon Dog (Red) 1995), Keith Haring (a signed and dated 1989 Feltpen on paper) work on paper) and David LaChapelle (Fish Stick: Devon Aoki in Agent Provocateur, London (1998), edition of 50).
Jansen was approached by The Dutch Foundation for the Preservation of Art & Culture last year and asked to assist in their efforts to raise funds for children’s art and culture in the Netherlands by donating a painting. The work was supposed to be auctioned by Christie’s Auction House but the Foundation decided on AAG Amsterdam instead.
AAG made special mention of Jansen in their initial press materials announcing the auction, referring to him as an “exciting newcomer” and a “promising American-born painter at his first international auction.”
The highest auction prices by any living artist were paid for works by Dutch-born painter Henk Helmantal (b. 1945, Netherlands, (Medlars and quinces, 2012 l.r. Oil on board, 45.2 x 64.5cm)), followed by Armando (b. 1929, Netherlands, (Der Baum, dated 23-1-85, 210.7 x 145.4cm)).
For complete auction results, please visit: http://www.veilinghuisaag.com/catalog/online/lang/en_GB .
UNIT A Contemporary Art Space located at 1922 Evans Avenue in downtown Fort Myers operates as Jansen’s international headquarters. For appointments and inquires, please contact Amanda at amandaunitaspace@gmail.com.
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Jansen ‘Manekin Pis’ goes to auction at AAG Amsterdam on June 16 (06-11-14)
Fort Myers artist Marcus Jansen will make his first international auction house appearance on June 16. On that date, international auction house AAG Amsterdam will auction Jansen’s canvas Maneken Pis (48×36″, 2003) to benefit the Children’s Art & Culture in the Netherlands. The Dutch Foundation for the preservation of Art & Culture asked Jansen last year to assist in their efforts by donating a work. The work was initially supposed to be auctioned by Christie’s Auction House but the foundation decided on AAG Amsterdam instead.
The painting will be part of “Modern & Contemporary Art” section Lot # (171). All proceeds go to the foundation Kunst en Cultuur Behoud NL. Collectors who would like to be part of this event don’t have to be in Amsterdam to bid on the work. To follow Lot # (171), simply visit http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/marcus-jansen-new-york-city-1968-171-c-2004597d3a now and on June 16. Also included in Lot # (171) are important works by Jeff Koons, David LaChapelle and others in the “Modern & Contemporary Art” category.
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Marcus Jansen and The UNIT maintain torrid summer pace (06-03-14)
Marcus Jansen and UNIT A Contemporary Art Space continue their torrid pace in June. Here’s what’s happening both locally and abroad:
At the UNIT, you are cordially invited to June Art Walk featuring the original painting Creeping Obstacles in Kansas with music playing that was specifically composed by Dr. Alan Theisen. UNIT A will also feature the recent Baker Museum exhibited work Orwellian Infiltration along with When the Cowboys Came, a work recently back from San Francisco, along side special previously-unreleased Michaela Jansen memorial film footage documentary playing at 7:00, 8:00, and 9:00 p.m. There will additionally be new works in the gallery. For more information, please contact unitaspaceinfo@gmail.com or visit www.unitaspace.com/collection.
In Bolzano, Italy, the first Italian Marcus Jansen catalog is being released on June 11 by Jansen’s Milan representatives, Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter. The catalog contains 64 pages of pictures with critical essays written by renowned Italian art critic, Alessandro Riva. Only 40 copies of the limited edition catalog are available and will likely be sold out before the release date June 11. 2014. Please contact us at unitaspaceinfo@gmail.com to reserve your copy. More information forthcoming, but to monitor breaking news, please visit http://galleriabiancamariarizzi.com/.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, select works by Jansen are on display at the Pinacoteca Benedicto Calixto Museum. The solo exhibition opened on May 15, 2014 and also featured Jansen’s first Brazilian catalog, published by Roberta Britto Gallery. Please follow UNIT A’s calendar online for the next exhibition in Brazil by visiting http://www.unitaspace.com/calendar/ or http://pinacotecadesantos.org.br/Default.aspx.
In London, United Kingdom, Jansen’s solo show, “The Whistleblower”, will open up at the Lazarides Rathbone this October. Lazarides is Banksy’s first dealer and known to be the source for contemporary urban art in the United Kingdom. More information forthcoming at http://www.lazinc.com/.
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‘Creeping Obstacles,’ ‘Orwellian Infiltration’ and ‘Painter’s Allegory’ film footage highlight Art Walk at the Unit (06-01-14)
Marcus Jansen’s international headquarters at UNIT A Contemporary Art Space continues to be a vortex of activity. Jansen’s first solo South American museum exhibition opened at the Pinacoteca Benedicto Calixto Museum in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 15. Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter in Milan is releasing a Jansen catalogue on June 11 in Bolzano during the artist’s second solo show in Italy in less than a year. And the UNIT is featuring Jansen’s renowned Creeping Obstacles in Kansas for the first time in two years during Art Walk on June 6.
Creeping Obstacles is owned by Jansen’s biggest private collector. The stunning work has been featured in multiple publications, including the cover of the prestigious art publication New American Paintings No. 94 that introduces the leading emerging American painters in the country from a mostly-MFA graduate selection. The work was also selected by Orange County Museum of Art Chief Curator Dan Cameronas part of the 2012 MFA Alumni selection.
The painting will be accompanied by a DVD music recently composed by Alan Theisen Ph.D specifically for Creeping Obstacles in Kansas. In addition, Jansen’s work Orwellian Infiltration is back from the Baker Museum of Art in Naples, where it had been on view as part of the annual Florida Contemporary exhibition. UNIT A will also screen raw film footage that did not make the final cut of Michaela Jansen’s (1973-2011) art commentary documentary, A Painters Allegory. Being aired to commemorate Michaela’s birthday weekend and recognize her involvement in Jansen’s career from 1997 through her untimely death in March of 2011, the clip will include short but informative footage shot during the film in December 2011 by Eric Raddatz, Edward Clay and Flip Minott. The exclusive footage plays for the first time publicly anywhere on the hour beginning at 7:00 p.m.
New details announced about first Jansen Italian catalogue and June solo show (05-19-14)
Marcus Jansen’s international headquarters at UNIT A Contemporary Art Space has announced new details about the release of his Italian catalogue at a new solo show taking place in Italy next month.
The show came about as a result of an invitation received from one of Italy’s most renowned collector circles and will take place in Bolzano, Italy in conjunction with their annual art event, which boasts an exclusive guest list containing 150 VIP collectors. Jansen’s European gallery representative, Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter in Milan, has chosen that occasion to release Jansen’s first Italian art catalogue, which features 64 pages of full-color prints of Jansen’s paintings along with an essay by Italian art critic and author of “street art sweet art”, Alessandro Riva. The official documentary by Antonio Deluca titled “Marcus Jansen in Milan” will also be screened at the opening reception.
An article about Jansen in Milan appeared in Italy’s leading art publication, Art Magazine ARTE, as well as Rolling Stone and ESPOARTE, which asked, “A new star born?” You may review it here by visiting www.arte.it/calendario-arte/milano/mostra-marcus-jansen-first-solo-show-in-italy-5760.
For information, please contact Amanda Plummer at amandaunitaspace@gmail.com or visit www.unitaspace.com.
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Italian Jansen catalogue to be released at Milan solo show opening in June (05-18-14)
Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter in Milan is publishing an Italian Jansen catalogue. It will commemorate Jansen’s solo show in Milan last November and be released during the artist’s second solo show in Italy this June. Containing 64 pages of full-color prints of Jansen’s paintings, the catalogue will also feature an essay by Italian art critic and author of “street art sweet art”, Alessandro Riva. The official documentary by Antonio Deluca titled “Marcus Jansen in Milan” will be screened at the opening reception.
The show last November/December served as a bridge between Jansen’s debut at ART VERONA International Art Fair on October 10 – 14 and his first one-man museum exhibition in Europe. In announcing the opening, Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter touted that “Jansen’s oeuvre is a sort of urban legend: mysterious and foreboding. At first glance, his work seems charged with a surreal urban-like atmosphere, where the conscious and unconscious coexist in a commentary of our everyday world. In fact, the artist faces the creative act as a free flow from the unconscious, without prior sketching or references. This technique allows him to recreate a very particular universe where the most dissimilar icons amalgamate into a superlative palimpsest expression of the interdependent world in which we cohabit.”
“These frightening and enigmatic suburban cityscapes reveal receding farms, residencies in foreclosure, scattered debris of industry, inhabited by the most capricious creatures: tire-horned goats, flying targeted pigs, silhouetted crows on wires, lonely clowns,” the gallery continued. “Jansen’s characters are victims of oblivion, populating a sort of Limbo, symbol of their pariah status. Alongside these creatures, anodyne signs proliferate: eclipsed suns, abandoned colorful toy balls, tires, fences, supermarket carts, boarded up windows; all of them waste and trail of the urban life.”
The historic and literal symbols are another imperative key of this disturbing but captivating universe. “In this sense, Jansen highlights the allusions to the Weimar Republic as a parallel to our contemporary society, the conjunction of the Titanic and Noah’s Ark in a completely new allegory, or the recurring references to the Wizard of Oz, one of the most widely known American popular culture icons,” the gallery notes, providing a European slant on the metaphorical content underlying Jansen’s compositions. “Jansen’s artwork is autobiographic in a certain way, and some characters may be identified as the artist itself. Such is the case of the Tin Man, and the errant figure of the artist carrying with his portfolio as the only baggage.”
“Formally, his work is the result of multiple crossings between historic expressionism, abstract expressionism, graffiti, and pop,” Gallerie Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter sums up. “With very aggressive and spontaneous brush strokes, Jansen’s mixed media canvasses are highlighted by the magisterial use of twisted forms, emotional color, and the insertion of clips from newspapers, digital prints, or stencils that the artist juxtaposes in a commentary of the global village.”
More insights like these can be expected in the upcoming catalogue. For more on the impending solo show in June and associated Italian Jansen catalogue, please visit www.arte.it/calendario-arte/milano/mostra-marcus-jansen-first-solo-show-in-italy-5760.
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Jansen’s first solo South American museum exhibition opens in Sao Paula, Brazil (05-17-14)
Marcus Jansen’s first solo South American museum exhibition opened at the Pinacoteca Benedicto Calixto Museum in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 15. Titled Vini, Vidi Succumbe, the exhibition kicks off Jansen’s series of Brazilian traveling museum exhibition that will include a stop in Rio de Janeiro later this year.
The Pinacoteca Benedicto Calixto Museum exhibition follows Jansen’s much-discussed introduction to the South American art scene by Roberta Britto Gallery on April 30. The opening for that event drew celebrities, Paparazzi, TV stations and more than a few noted museum academics. (For more, visit: www.pinacotecadesantos.org.br/Programacao.aspx?IdCategoria=2.)
Vini Vidi Succumbe contains works on canvas spanning 2009 – 2014, including Jansen’s Faceless series, one of which was purchased in 2012 by the Museum of Contemporary Art PERMM in Russia for its permanent collection. The traveling exhibition of Jansen’s work in Brazil underscores the growing importance of Jansen’s expressive paintings and commentary of our contemporary and shifting world and includes topics such as life in a society denoted by increasing surveillance, loss of liberties, anonymity and genetically modified animals and food. As his popularity grows, Jansen is being invited to exhibit increasingly in museum and gallery shows both in the United States and abroad, and the artist has projects planned in 2015 in Europe and the United States.
“Painting is a consistent battle for two key elements, survival and freedom,” states Jansen. “It is as much about being free to survive as it is surviving to be free.”
Born in New York in 1968, Jansen has been perfecting his craft for more than 30 years. He attended the Kunstgewerbe Schulen in Moenchengladbach Germany before joining the U.S. Armed Forces, where he was a combat soldier in the First Gulf War before transforming his life to a visual artist.
His work is in Museum collections in Russia, Asia and the United States. He is the recipient of the Dave Bown Project grant prize 5th Semi Annual and was a semifinalist at the 2013 and a finalist at Australia’s Fleurieu Art Prize, his work being selected there by curator Nigel Hurst, Director and Chief Executive at Saatchi Gallery in London.
Jansen’s next opening exhibition at his Fort Myers studio, UNIT A Contemporary Art Space, will be held June 6, 2014 between 6 and 10 p.m. UNIT A is where local collectors and art enthusiasts get the first glimpse and first dibs on the artist’s new work before it departs to international exhibitions and overseas galleries. Also available at UNIT A will be thePinacoteca Benedicto Calixto Museum show catalog, which features an essay by Art Historian Dianah Guimaraens Ph.D
For more information about the artist, please visit www.unitaspace.com or contact UNIT A Artist Administrative Assistant Amanda Plummer by email at amandaunitaspace@gmail.com.
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The Americano in Sao Paulo, local artist Marcus Jansen takes Brazil by storm (05-03-14)
Veni, Vidi, Succume opened at the Roberta Britto Gallery in Sao Paulo, Brazil on April 30. It marked the latest international exhibition by acclaimed painter Marcus Jansen, but his first in South America.
More than 400 enthusiasts crammed into the 7,000-square-foot gallery space, which is owned and operated by pop artist Romero Britto’s sister. Among them were Brazilian celebrities like Thammy Miranda, the beautiful Monique Alfradique and actor Carlos Casagrande, along with scores of Sao Paulo paparazzi from gossip magazines to TV journalists, who nicknamed Jansen “the Americano in Sao Paulo.” All were curious to see the American painter who is taking the world art market by storm with his sweeping urban landscapes and enigmatic Anonymous portrait series.
Guests were treated to first glimpse of 25 Jansen works, of which five were Jansen’s signature giant-size canvases. With red dots appearing within the first hours of the night and more pending according to gallery owner Roberta Britto, the gallery had an exciting energy that extended to the outside, where security stayed busy as the night went by.
Lauren Greenough, Jansen’s longtime naples dealer, pitched the show to Britto, who also did a show with Marilyn Manson many years ago which also proved to be a huge success. Greenough introduced Britto to Jansen at Fort Myers’ UNIT A Contemporary Art Space in February while she was visiting Florida. After a tour of Jansen’s studios and works, Britto immediately offered Jansen a solo show in Brazil and took twenty works on the spot with her to Sao Paulo.
“I will champion you in Brazil” said Britto. Although the Gallery had a fairly short time to prepare, the opening was closely covered by most major news outlets not just in Sao Paulo but in all of Brazil. GLOBO News TV filmed the event, and the important Economics Magazine ISTOE DINHEIRO conducted a lengthy interview, which will be released the following week. In addition, the gallery produced an in-depth catalog written by art historian Dinah Guimaraens Ph.D, who is Curator of the Museum of Art and Origins and who lectures at New York University. Guimaraens also invited various museum curators, and there was already talk about showing in a major solo exhibition at a Contemporary Art Museum in Brazil in the near future.
Jansen’s next show is in London with Lazarides Rathbone, known to be Banksy’s first dealer. Called The Whistleblower, the show will take place in October this year.
For more information, please visit www.unitaspace.com and www.hwgallery.com.
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Jansen painting ‘Creeping Obstacles in Kansas’ inspires Alan Theisen woodwind composition (04-21-14)
Last night was the world premiere of Gallery, a large–scale woodwind composition written by Alan Theisen. The piece was commissioned by the FSU College of Music for the Force Majeure Quintet. The fourth movement of the piece was inspired by local artist Marcus Jansen’s dystopian urban landscape, Creeping Obstacles in Kansas.
Force Majeure consists of five instruments: flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and horn. In writing the composition, Theisen wrote a movement that features each member of the quintet using a different painting as backdrop for that instrument:
- Movement 1: Claude Monet – The Cliff Walk at Pourville (movement for bassoon);
- Movement 2: Gustav Klimt – Water Serpents II (movement for flute);
- Movement 3: Roy Lichtenstein – Ohhh…Alright… (movement for horn);
- Movement 4: Marcus Jansen – Creeping Obstacles in Kansas (movement for oboe); and
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Movement 5: Piet Mondrian – Broadway Boogie Woogie (movement for clarinet).
Jansen often paints to the accompaniment of classical music, but had never before experienced one of his paintings coming to life in a classical composition. “I was absolutely honored, captured and floored by the movement [embodying] Creeping Obstacles in Kansas,” said Jansen in an email interview. “It was as if the painting took on another dimension or life and now spoke in sound. It was as if you were watching a transition of something visual continue in another form of life trough music. It was incredibly done by Dr. Theisen. Like Dorothy in the painting, the piece left us breathless.”
Last night was not the first time that Dorothy has come to life before the artist’s eyes. Jansen was equally astonished when Bon Soiree’s Pam Beckman brought Dorothy to life for the 2012 Alliance for the Arts fundraiser Urban Decaydence. During that unforgettable September 22 gala, a balloon toting Dorothy and her television-headed Anonymous escort strolled through Jansen’s UNIT A Contemporary Art Space, introducing each of the acts that were about to unfold in Beckman’s performance art piece.
While Gallery marks the first time that Jansen has collaborated with a classical composer and musicians, it is not the first time his work has inspired a musical collaboration. Last year, Jansen and visual artists such as Kehinde Whiley, Shepard Fairey, Chuck Close, Jonathan Meese, Daniel Richter, Marlene Dumas and Takashi Murakami teamed up with hip-hop musicians that include Jay-Z, Ludacris and Lil Wayne in The Art Album by ART ON DEKZ, a collaboration that showcases the art behind hip-hop lyrics compared to the themes in contemporary visual art. In fact, Jansen’s painting Spotlight on Education was chosen for the book’s cover.
However, it is rare, if not unprecedented for a living artist to have work memorialized in a classical composition. But it will not be Jansen’s last. “This is only the first in a number of pieces that are being composed of Marcus work,” notes UNIT A Artist Administrative Assistant Amanda Plummer. “The next will be from the Faceless series that will show solo in Dallas at Galleri Urbane in 2015 and later this year in London at Lazarides Rathbone for Marcus’s London debut at the gallery during the Frieze International Art Fair.”
Both Jansen and the composer attended last night’s performance on the campus of Florida State University.
Alan Theisen (b. October 4, 1981) is professor of music at Mars Hill University where he is the coordinator of music theory and composition. He previously taught at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University (Bloomington) after receiving his Ph.D. in music theory and composition from Florida State University and degrees (B.M. – Music History & M.M. Music Theory) from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Theisen’s compositions have been performed throughout the United States and Europe. His music, frequently commissioned by chamber and large ensembles, has been described by composer Dimitri Terzakis as being “the product of a unique talent.” Commissioning organizations include the Argot Trio, A/B Duo, Force Majeure Quintet, Tromboteam!, Samford University, Trio Bel Canto, the Mana Quartet, Duo Fujin, members of the US Army Field Band, and the Asheville Community Band. Theisen’s works combine an expressive melodic sensibility, a diverse harmonic language, and elaborate formal designs.
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Marcus Jansen attracting attention from number of international art professionals (04-17-14)
This year, Marcus Jansen is exhibiting his work in some of the world’s most attractive art destinations, including New York, London, Milan and Sao Paulo. Inclusion in these shows is serving to add to Jansen’s growing international recognition and acclaim.
The Sao Paola show resulted following a visit paid by renowned Brazilian art dealer Roberta Britto in February to UNIT A Contemporary Art Space in the downtown Fort Myers River District, which serves as Jansen’s worldwide headquarters. Britto, whose brother, Romero, has been compared favorably with the likes of Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Roy Lichtenstein, was invited to take a tour of Jansen’s gallery and studio space by Southwest Florida dealer, Lauren Greenough of HW Gallery in Naples (who also had ties to the late Robert Rauschenberg and still sells master works by him and artists like Darryl Pottorf).
Greenough developed a relationship with Jansen more than eight years ago when she hosted a show called the Illuminum Project, in which Jansen was commissioned by the Illuminum company to paint bottles for the brand and film the official commercial at Jansen’s studios. Illuminum is same perfume that was worn by Kate Middelton at her wedding. In 2006, Greenough also sold three of Jansen’s early works to the late Crosby Kemper. Those paintings are part of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art’s permanent collection.
Britto had originally intended to take a few small works on paper, but after seeing Jansen’s large-scale urban landscapes and surrealist paintings up close and personal, she opted instead for 22 large-scale works and offered Jansen his first solo show in South America on the spot. “We will champion you in Brazil,” Britto said.
The Sao Paulo show follows on the heels of Jansen’s successful homecoming at Castle Fitzjohns Gallery in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. That show attracted curators from the Guggenheim Museum, MOMA and others as well as rave reviews from Arte
Fuse and an in depth interview in Schon Magazine, UK.
Like Roberta Britto and her brother Romero, new Baker Museum of Art director and curator Frank Verpoorten is well versed in the international art scene. Thus, it came as quite an honor when Verpoorten personally extended an invitation to Jansen to participate in this year’s Florida Contemporary exhibition at the Baker Museum in Naples. Jansen was similarly honored when Nigel Hurst, Director and Chief Executive of London’s Saatchi Gallery, chose Jansen as a finalist in last year’s prestigious Fleurieu Art Prize in Australia and by his selection as the first Florida-based artist to ever grace the cover of the New American Paintings Alumni publication No. 94.
Jansen’s career spans nearly three decades and traces its origins to his graffiti art days in Manhattan in the 1980s. Now 45, the Gulf War Veteran has work in the permanent collections of eight major international museums, including the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, The New Britain Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian Institution.
The artist’s upcoming show in Sao Paulo will be hosted on April 30 by Roberta Britto Galleria de Arte, which is located at Rua Oscar Freire 562, Jardins, São Manuel Museum and the Pinacoteca Benedito Calixto Museum in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The exhibition will mark Jansen’s introduction to the South American art market and will concomitantly contain a variety of new paintings, many of which may be previewed by local art enthusiasts and collectors during Art Walk at UNIT A, where they will be debuted prior to being shipped to Sao Paulo. The Sao Paulo exhibition will also include a television appearance on FAUSTAO.
For information about the exhibition or Jansen’s work in general, please contact UNIT A at amandaunitaspace@gmail.com or by calling 239.338.8449.
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You have written a lot about our Lee visual culture Marcus Jansen. However you have not tackled the story of expressionism. It comes from Pissarro, Van Gogh, Einstein. Einstein warned the intelligent people weapons of mass destruction were being made for use against civilian populations. Dada, Surrealism,Expressionism, German Expressionism are all languages of truth to power. You have not connected the dots because why? What is in-between Marcus and Einstein? The Rauschenberg legacy told you not to go there so you don’t. Good gaze shift. Pre postmodern BFA
not connecting the dots between Einstein, George Grosz, Romare Bearden and Marcus makes this visual culture a Holocaust denial culture. Just denying the humanity in painting is Holocaust denial, Rush Library 2013 Rauschenberg legacy separates the humanity in painting from painting and declares painting vocational. This is Holocaust denial. You write nothing to restore the humanity in painting or art history. I think you like it broken and get paid to keep it that way, why else avoid the incredible story of humanity in Expressionism? Hitler wanted them dead, why does our visual culture bury them also? Peer pressure, what ever, we need a coherent art history and someone to respond to it. pre postmodern BFA