Christian Jankowski. Oops! I did it again

Since studying at the Kunstakademie in Hamburg, Christian Jankowski (1968, Göttingen, Germany) has explored the way the visual media are used in entertainment. In his work he swaps the roles of the art world and the mass media to establish a relationship between meaning and content. The most surprising part of his exhibition in the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea is the karaoke bar installed in the basement, entitled The Day We Met (2003), in which visitors can choose their favourite song from a selection of thousands of titles and sing live on a small stage next to a screen showing the video and the lyrics. With no prior rehearsal, Christian Jankowski plays the main part and is accompanied by professional Korean actresses. The musical video No One Better than You(2004), made for Fangoria, is also based on the idea of swapping roles: while what we hear is unmistakably the voice of Alaska – the red-haired singer of Fangoria – the image we see is that of the blond singer Marta Sánchez. Ebbe in der Freiheit (Ebbe in Freedom, 1993) is a performance by two revival Abba groups, and Let’s Get Physical/Digital (1993) is a web chat between Jankowski and his girlfriend Una, whose role is played by different people chosen electronically in Sweden. From 1st April the public will have the chance to view other videos by the artist which will be shown looped and grouped into three thematic areas. The first looks at the transformation of the protagonists of the art system (artist, curator and audience); the second addresses the infiltration of art-related issues in popular television, and the third brings out the relationship between art and cinema. The projection of these twelve videos make this CGAC exhibition Christian Jankowski’s biggest retrospective.

Pressetext

Christian Jankowski. Oops!... I did it again
Kurator: Georg Elben