JONATHAN MEESE
b. 1970, JapanOften known for his controversial and ambiguous political statements issued through paintings, sculptures, installations, and performances, Meese’s practice is routed in the German traditions of Dada and Fluxus, drawing inspirations from artists like Joseph Beuys. His provocateur disposition and the proclamation of ‘Dictatorship of Art’, often walk the fine line between provocation and blasphemy, catharsis and exorcism, or personal idolization and political criticism.
Meese’s paintings, drawings, and installations, indebted to the German Neo-expressionism of the 1980s, are stylistically garish. His seemingly careless technique feigns then naivete of an enfant terrible. On his canvas, Meese applies tubes of acrylics, crayons, graphite, ink, and watercolour with complete rejection to preconceived notions of painting. His images are often collaged with found objects, original photographs of political figures (or of himself), and written as graffiti of political manifestos (or his own) in untranslatable German and English neologisms.
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