SHOWS
New Horizons Drawing Show School of the Art Institute of Chicago Chicago, Illinois
Masters Show Northern Illinois University DeKalb, Illinois
Group Show Harper College Schaumburg, Illinois
Group Show NAB Gallery Chicago, Illinois
6th Summer Summit conversations on “”being” LIPA Gallery 410 South Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois
The Glamour of War Gallery Chicago 760 N. Milwaukee Chicago, Illinois September 11, 2004
A & B Riverside Arts Center 32 East Quincy Riverside, Ilinois October 15 - November 10, 2004
Immersion Point LIPA Gallery 410 South Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois November 19 - December 12, 2005
Interpret Interrupt LIPA Gallery 410 South Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois May 13 - June 8, 2005
Grass Chicago Park Yourself - Citywide Parking Space Project Peoria between Washington and Monroe Chicago, Illinois September 16, 2006
Ping/Pong the presence of absence one person show Lubeznic Center Michigan City, Indiana September 13 - November 9, 2008
Inside/out upside/down one person show mosnart gallery 11319 S. Saint Lawrence Chicago, Illinois August 23 - September 20, 2009
The Narrative Self - The 5th Annual Self-Portrait Show 33 Collective Gallery Zhou B Art Center 1029 W. 35th Street Chicago, Illinois May 15 - June 11, 2009 Gallery Award
In Memory - Presence of Absence / The Text of Time solo show Dorothea Thiel Gallery South Suburban College 15800 S. State Street South Holland, Illinois August 20 - September 18, 2012
The Case of Books 1st Annual Art Competition Bridgeport Art Center 1200 W. 35th Street Chicago, Illinois January 5 - 31, 2013
Blink - Michigan City, IN
ABOUT JENS BRASCH
EDUCATION Bachelor of Fine Arts Northern Illinois University Master of Arts Northern Illinois University
EMPLOYMENT High School Art Teacher District 214 Rolling Meadows High School, Rolling Meadows, Illinois 1972 - 1976 High School Art Teacher District 214 Wheeling High School Wheeling, Illinois 1976 - 1999
ARTIST STATEMENT:
“What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms, a sum, in short, of human relationships which, rhetorically and poetically intensified, ornamented, and transformed, come to be thought of, after long usage by a people, as fixed, binding, and canonical. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions, worn out metaphors, now important to stir the senses, coins which lost their faces and are considered now as metal rather than as currency.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
Art, it follows, consists of illusions that declare themselves as such, but in so doing, sharpens understanding of our uncertain relation to truth.
Art now exists in some strange new forms. Everything is open to discussion; everything is more a truth claim than a stable argument. All knowledge, including art, has a social bases and is supported by the shared culture of the society in which the knowledge (art, science, history) is produced. These are articles of cultural faith, many are conventions.
My conviction is that language, or discourse, is fundamental to any art. I reject any version of the ideal of a universal essence, totality, or center as a basis for art.
I believe that the object is not a constellation of matter releasing a single "theological" meaning, the message of the artist, but a multidimensional space in which a variety of meanings, none of them original, blend and clash. Ideological traditions always try to disguise their conventionality or arbitrariness by presenting themselves as natural or pure.
My work is therefore a conversation with the viewer about representation or meaning and object. Different images and representations are used to discuss meaning or to empty meaning out, with an attempt to reveal to the viewer what they automatically and unconsciously bring to the experience.
- Jens Brasch, 2013