Artists

Jonathan Monk

Press release

British artist Jonathan Monk (b.1969) frequently replays, manipulates, and re-examines seminal works of Conceptual and Minimal Art. In his aesthetic strategy, he deliberately oscillates between paying homage and persiflage. In doing so, Monk appropriates art history and its myths while scrutinizing the rules of the exhibition industry and the aesthetic concept of originality. In his murals, paintings, sculptures, and photographs, he reflects on contemporary art's propensity to function as a mere system of reference and demystifies the idea of art as the outcome of an ingenious creative process. The exhibition opens with a photo wallpaper that Monk unveiled in his Vienna gallery in 2022. The ongoing series, which started in 2016, showcases the artist's past exhibitions at other institutional venues. Conceived as an evolving archive, the wallpapers not only serve as a visual record of the artist's past exhibitions but also functions as a platform for presenting any current work. Curated by Axel Köhne.