CHRISTIAN JANKOWSKI

As is often the case in Jankowski’s work, it’s the transitions between the public and the private, the shared and the personal, society and the individual—and their respective roles and spheres of action—that the artist explores. This becomes apparent in the seriesI Was Told to go With the Flow (color and mixed media on crates, 2025), now on view at the gallery on the occasion of the exhibition, on the occasion of the wedding. It consists of altered transport crates for artworks. Placed on them: the hopeful, success- and love-promising titles of self-help books.

The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time is written in white letters on a large wooden box that once protected a Jankowski artwork during transport. Tied to it: the hope of the artist, the gallery, and all the others who are interdependent in the art ecosystem, that it might be sold at the respective art fair (Secrets of Closing the Saleis the title of another self-optimization book featured in the series), that the press will write favorably about it, that people will like it and understand it. More than just an artwork travels with the crate.

And so, the crates come with various instructions for use: “Fragile! Handle with Care” it says, among other things. The imperative could just as well apply to dealing with people in general, and especially those who give their hearts in marriage. People too are “fragile” and should be treated with “care.”

Within the crates slumbers something unexpected—perhaps even inexplicable—at the very least, they are filled to the brim with potential. Like genies in bottles, where the bottle’s only real purpose is to contain the spirit. And once again, the question arises: where does an artwork actually begin, and where does it end? Is there a clear boundary, or does it fray at the edges? The unknown contents leave room for everything that could be, if only one had read and understood all the guides properly. The underlying shortcut: had one read, understood, and applied them all, one would be rich, in love, and perhaps simply a better person altogether. The hope that art can transform its audience is not uncommon in the art world either.

Fitting with the theme of the wedding—on the occasion of which these artworks now gather—are the neon pieces from the series Luftschlösser (Castles in the Air). People are known to dream them up—and it’s all the more beautiful when a few of them come true. When visiting construction sites of prestigious new buildings, Jankowski asks those practically involved in the building process to draw their dream castle for him on old plans and notes. Thus, for example, the private dream of the plasterer working on the Humboldt Forum merges with the dream of all those who financed and thereby made possible the construction of the controversial city palace (Luftschloss, Nagelsalon, 2025). The private meets the public. The collective meets the individual. Without mediation, these otherwise neatly separated actors encounter one another in Jankowski’s works and probe what is possible—where freedom begins, but also where it ends.

Andreas B., who worked on the construction of the new “Berlin Modern” museum, also sketched his idea of a dream castle: Greek columns under a circus tent. After all, one is still allowed to dream.

It wouldn’t be a true Jankowski-style loop if this very text weren’t also aWedding Gift. And just like that, Cristina and Christian dance in an endless loop in their wedding video, circle one another, fall into each other’s arms—during their first dance as a married couple, which will hopefully and certainly go on forever.

Courtesy Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin/Basel. Text: Laura Helena Wurth.