C.T. Jasper (born in 1971 as Christian Tomazewski) is a Polish modern artist who specialises in digital art, despite graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts.

C.T. Jasper
Born1971 (age 52–53)
Gdańsk, Poland
NationalityPolish
EducationAcademy of Fine Arts 1996

Biography

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C.T. Jasper was born as Christian Tomazewski in 1971 in Gdańsk, Poland. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań in 1996. He lives in Brooklyn, New York and teaches in the Sculpture department at Tyler School of Art.[1]

Work

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C.T. Jasper's primary artistic medium is video, including elements of science-fiction literature and modern communist utopias.

Works include the installation entitled Erased (2012), which uses cinematographic images.[2] The work consists of three videos with sound in an empty gallery space. Erased was first shown at Le Guern Gallery in Warsaw, Poland in 2012. In 2013, the work was shown at The Standard, in Hollywood, and then in 2015 at the Museum of Art in Łódź at a joint exhibition with Joanna Malinowska entitled Związki rozwiązki/ Relations Disrelations. The artist digitally modified two movies, erasing all human presence from the segments of the films Blue Velvet by David Lynch and The Tin Drum by Volker Schlöndorff. A third video was a looped excerpt from Stanley Kramer's 1995 drama On the Beach, played on a computer screen at the gallery's reception desk.[3] Vacant gallery space merged with film space, becoming one undefined place.[4][5]

The work Sunset of the Pharaohs was first prepared for the Frieze Art Fair in New York (2014).[6] The artist digitally erased all the protagonists from the Polish movie Pharaoh, directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz (1965), which was an adaptation from the 19th Century novel by Bolesław Prus. The video projection was played inside an architectural structure covered with sheep skins, recalling a nomadic lifestyle.[7] The shape was reminiscent of a camera's bellows.[8][9] Jasper's technique involved digital removal of the human presence in the Sunset of the Pharaohs.[10]

In 2015, C.T. Jasper, in collaboration with Joanna Malinowska and curator Magdalena Moskalewicz, prepared a project entitled Halka / Haiti: 18° 48'05" N 72° 23'01" W,[11] commissioned by Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland.[12] It was presented at the Polish Pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale.[13][14][15][16] The key inspiration for artists was Werner Herzog's movie Fitzcarraldo, in which the main protagonist plans to build an opera in the middle of Amazonian forest. Jasper's and Malinowska's project refers to this act in a critical way and deals with an issue of cultural colonization and oppression of European empires.[17][18] Jasper and Malinowska decided to stage the opera Halka by Stanisław Moniuszko,[19] in the town of Cazale, Haiti – a place inhabited by the descendants of the Polish soldiers from Napoleon's legions.[20][21][22][23] The film screening followed by a discussion with the artists was also included in the program of Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art in 2015.[24] In the same year C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska began work on the project Bureau of Masks Inventory which was shown at the exhibition Daily and Religious Rituals curated by Michał Jachuła at the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok in Poland. Since 2016 they have been working on a sound piece entitled The Emperor's Canary for the High Line in New York City. The installation comprises two gramophones inspired by Werner Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo. The first one plays a recording of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and the second gramophone plays a recording of a person with black lung disease. These two sounds represent the crisis in people's relationship to the environment.[25]

Collections

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Jasper's works appear in public and private collections in Poland and abroad:

  • Museum of Art in Łódź[26]
  • Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw[27]
  • ING Polish Art Foundation[28]
  • Hirshhorn Museum in Washington[29]

Exhibitions

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C.T. Jasper has had solo exhibitions at SculptureCenter, New York City;[30] Tufts University Art Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts; Michael Wiesehoefer Gallery, Cologne, Germany; Frieze Art Fair, New York; Museum of Art, Łódź, Poland (with Joanna Malinowska);[31] Polish Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia - 56th International Art Exhibition;[32] Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, and Analix Forever, in collaboration with Joanna Malinowska, Geneva, Switzerland. Group exhibitions include Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York City; Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland; Performa '09 –the Third Biennial of Performance Art, New York City; Athens Biennale, Greece; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico; National State Gallery, Gdańsk, Poland; International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Gothenburg, Sweden; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture, Garden, Washington, D.C.; and The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia.

References

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  1. ^ "faculty bio CT Jasper, Tyler School of Art, Temple University". Temple University. 2018-07-07.
  2. ^ Krzysztof Kosciuczuk, Christian Tomaszewski, Frieze Magazine, Issue 152, January–February, 2013.
  3. ^ James Voorhies, Something else, something more than exhibition and cinema: the art of C.T. Jasper, Relations / Disrelations. exhibition catalogue, Museum of Art in Łódź, printed in Poland, 2015, p. 48, ISBN 978-83-63820-29-9
  4. ^ C.T. Jasper's New Film 'Erased' at The Standard, Hollywood, The Standard Culture, October 8, 2013
  5. ^ Joanna Malinowska, C.T. Jasper. Relations / Disrelations, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Art, Łódź, Poland, ed. Michał Jachuła, Printed in Poland, 2015, ISBN 978-83-63820-29-9.
  6. ^ Ken Johnson, Martha Schwendener, Strolling an Island of Creativity. Two Critics Sample the Frieze Art Fair, The New York Times, May 9, 2014.
  7. ^ „Związki rozwiązki" w Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi
  8. ^ Benjamin Sutton, Frieze New York Fumbles, Artnet News, May 9, 2014.
  9. ^ Noelle Bodick, Lurking Limbs, Art You Can Dance With, & Other Trends at Frieze New York, ArtSpace, May 10, 2014.
  10. ^ C.T. Jasper 'Sunset of the Pharaohs', ed. Le Guern Gallery, text: Christopher Eamon, Printed in Poland, 2014, ISBN 978-83-7960-004-5.
  11. ^ Nicholas Till, When a Humanities Scholar Cries at the Opera, The Times Higher Educational, September 1, 2016
  12. ^ Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland Archived 2015-07-11 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ Halka/Haiti 18°48'05"N 72°23'01"W. C.T. Jasper & Joanna Malinowska, ed. Magdalena Moskalewicz, graphic design: Project Projects, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Inventory Press, Warsaw, New York, 2015
  14. ^ Biennial Foundation
  15. ^ La Biennale di Venezia Archived 2017-07-06 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ "Halka/Haiti - Joanna Malinowska, C.T. Jasper".
  17. ^ Klara Kemp-Welch, Displacement, migration and colonisation the focus of two Polish presentations at Venice, The Art Newspaper, May 8, 2015
  18. ^ Polish Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, Artsy.net, May 4, 2015
  19. ^ Dina Akhmadeeva, Venice Biennale: must-see art from the 'new east' – in pictures, The Guardian, May 14, 2015
  20. ^ Ginevra Bria, Biennale di Venezia. Il Padiglione della Polonia raccontato da C.T. Jasper e Joanna Malinowska, Artribune, May 5, 2015
  21. ^ 10 Dinge, die man in Venedig nicht verpassen sollte, Monopol. Magazin für Kunst und Leben, May 9, 2015
  22. ^ Adrian Searle, Venice Biennale: the world is more than enough, The Guardian, May 11, 2015
  23. ^ Lilly Wei, Poland's Venice Pavilion Explores Haiti's Polish Connection, ARTNEWS, April 29, 2015
  24. ^ A story within a story..., September 12 - November 22 2015 Archived 2021-01-23 at the Wayback Machine.
  25. ^ Various Artists Mutations – High Line Art, New York
  26. ^ Museum of Art in Łódź, Poland - Collection
  27. ^ Zachęta - National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland - Collection
  28. ^ Prace z cyklu „Polowanie na bażanty" w kolekcji Fundacji Sztuki Polskiej ING
  29. ^ Hirshhorn Acquires Works by Diverse Slate of International Artists for Collection
  30. ^ Martha Schwendener (2007-06-08). "Strolling Within the Strange World of Blue Velvet". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  31. ^ Karol Sienkiewicz, Apokalipsa i magia, Dwutygodnik.com, March, 2015
  32. ^ "Halka/Haiti 18°48'05"N 72°23'01"W C.T. Jasper & Joanna Malinowska - exhibitions | Polish Pavilion in Venice - Zachęta – Narodowa Galeria Sztuki". Archived from the original on 2015-10-26. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
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