JAN ALBERS

1301PE is pleased to announce its second exhibition withDüsseldorf-based artist Jan Albers. Albers belongs to a young generationof conceptual artists who develop their work beyond the periodicallysupposed end of painting and is widely considered as one of the centralpositions of abstract contemporary art. Following Albers’ criticallyacclaimed solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven and the VonDer Heydt-Museum Wuppertal in Germany, this exhibition presents newwedge pieces, ‘chainsaw massacres,’ as well as his hydraulically pressedautomobile pieces.“Even if the attitude is that painting isover, I still keep on working on the idea of doing something new, byavoiding oil paint on canvas.” – Jan AlbersKnown for his processof ‘constructive deconstruction,’ Albers generates his hybridthree-dimensional wall pieces by reinterpreting materials from thefields of both construction and classic sculpture, such as polystyrene,wood, steel, concrete and bronze. Oscillating between sites ofdestruction and repair, his object-pictures are testament to thealchemical procedures of transformation, deformation and fragmentation.Positive and negative forms shift into one another, triggering tricks ofvision and destabilizing modes of perception. While exploring andscrutinizing the language of abstract modernism, Albers’ work isnevertheless closely tied to his own biography and the environment thatsurrounds him – sometimes reminiscent of distant planets, mountainmassifs or urban architecture. It is through this so-called ‘heavy-dutybeauty’ – as art historian and critic Belinda Grace Gardner hasdescribed it – that Albers confronts the richness but alsocontradictions of the contemporary world we live in.Jan Albers(b. 1971, Wuppertal, Germany) grew up in Namibia and studied at theKunstakademie Düsseldorf. He lives and works in Düsseldorf. Major soloexhibitions have been held at the Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven (2016);Kunstpalais Erlangen; Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal (both 2015);Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Dueren; Kunsthalle Giessen (2013); LangenFoundation, Neuss (2012). Selected group exhibitions include TransferKorea-NRW, Seoul, South Korea; The end of the line: attitudes indrawing, organized by Hayward Touring, UK; Optical & Visionary Artsince the 1960s, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX and MemorialGallery at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY; and Non-stopbeautiful ladies, Marfa, TX. Albers was awarded the 2006 Pollock KrasnerFoundation Award.