Artists

Steffen Jopp

Press release

Hautstück (piece of skin), Ohne Spiegel leben (living without a mirror), Dekompression (decompression), Regeneration (regeneration), Kompensation (compensation), anthropomorphic sheet-steel forms, the MRI scan of a hand—even a first glance at the list of works and a quick walk through Steffen Jopp's exhibition Cutis makes it clear that the human body, and the skin in particular, play a central role in his artistic practice. Cutis (Latin for “skin”) is the medical and biological term for the skin as an external organ in humans and animals. As the largest organ of the human body, it serves as a protective shield for our internal organs and a sensitive receptor of the world around us: it protects us from the outside world and connects us to it. Through the skin, we experience touch, warmth, cold, and pain; at the same time, our emotions become visible on it—we blush, turn pale, or sweat. As the body’s visible outer layer, it also shapes how we are perceived, recognized, and categorized in society. It is precisely this dual function of the skin as both boundary and contact surface between the human interior and the external world that lies at the center of Steffen Jopp's artistic investigation. In a present in which experiences of reality and the formation of identity are increasingly shaped by social media, algorithmic systems, and artificial intelligence, this interface acquires a new significance. At first glance, it is not immediately apparent that Hautstück (piece of skin) depicts a section of the artist's own body surface. Through the extreme enlargement of part of his chest, individual hairs appear as organic linear formations. The image of Jopp's skin is thereby stripped of its original legibility. At the same time, presented as a vertically rising illuminated lightbox, it is put emphatically on display. Other parts of his body appear in Ohne Spiegel leben (living without a mirror). Color-inverted transfer prints of his bare arms and legs are arranged in a twisted, larger-than-life composition together with the image of the gate to a burial site, forming an inverted crucifixion scene. Here, the body does not appear as a realistic self-portrait but rather as a transformed image oscillating between personal trace, symbolic charge, and a figure reminiscent of an avatar. The sacred visual language detaches the depiction from any singular identity and opens it to multiple possible manifestations of the self. The title Ohne Spiegel leben already provides the decisive clue to the theoretical ideas underlying Jopp's engagement with the human body. The anthology Living Without a Mirror, edited by media theorist Manfred Faßler, examined—years before the omnipresence of social media and generative AI—how a society increasingly shaped by digital media and technologically produced images was transforming the conditions of visibility, embodiment, and identity formation. At its core lies the question of what becomes of the human being when identity no longer emerges primarily through interpersonal social reflection but instead through technical, digital, and algorithmically driven feedback systems. Against this background, the anthropomorphic sheet-steel forms of Dekompression, Regeneration and Kompensation can also be understood. Resembling visors, masks, and shields, these works belong to a series of objects that has evolved continuously over the past three years, all designed to shield the body from external influences. As an additional layer, they cover the body, concealing it while simultaneously making it present in a new way. They can therefore also be read as metaphors for those surfaces through which identity is mediated, protected, and staged. On the one hand, they appear highly polished, elegantly patterned, and large enough to provide complete cover behind them. On the other hand, they bear the marks of external impact and are in some cases only just large enough to conceal what is essential—the face. Situated between protection and visibility, they ultimately recall the masks through which people reveal themselves, conceal themselves, and continually reinvent themselves within digital public spheres. Fittingly, the three titles refer to processes of relief, regeneration, and compensation, and thus to forms of adaptation in which stability is not assumed but must continually be reestablished. Carefully concealed within the low-contrast raster pattern of the image compositions in Regeneration and Kompensation are MRI scans of the artist's hand and head. The image of the hand emerges far more distinctly behind Hautstück, where it fills the entire wall. This newly opened view into the body's interior bypasses the protective yet simultaneously obscuring surfaces through which people encounter one another in everyday life. It eludes familiar forms of self-presentation and reveals a level of the body that ordinarily remains hidden from view. In Cutis, the body does not appear as a closed unity but as a system of interfaces and mediating layers. The concept of the interface, a term frequently employed by Faßler, provides an important key to understanding the exhibition: Jopp also refers to his steel masks mounted on MDF panels as interfaces. Serving as points of connection between different levels, they constitute a continuous organizing principle throughout Cutis and Jopp's oeuvre as a whole. The various layers of our perception—which in everyday life have become nearly impossible to separate—are here carefully dismantled into distinct strata and arranged visibly beside and upon one another. They acquire a material presence that brings Jopp's reflections on our mode of being into physical space in ever-new constellations, making them tangible for viewers. The exhibition's concluding centerpiece may be understood as the cylindrically curved steel body with its splayed metal struts extending from either side. It bears the descriptive title Satellit (satellite). Printed onto its surface are photographs of the artist's hands pointing through a window toward the radiant moon, reaching for it with palpable longing. Unlike the surrounding works, the focus here extends beyond the human body and its shells and masks to encompass the exterior of the perceptible universe itself. Paradoxically, the gaze is directed from the satellite outward toward the heavens—not, as one might expect, from outer space back toward the Earth. If one considers that, alongside the more overt images of his own body, Jopp often conceals small drawings of his facial features within the delicate engravings of his steel objects, Satellit may be understood as a particularly concise self-portrait: the artist as both transmitter and receiver –Text by Sebastian Peter Steffen Jopp (b. 1991, Iserlohn, Germany) lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. He studied Fine Arts at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 2015 to 2022 under Gregor Schneider, where he completed his Diploma in 2022 and subsequently became Meisterschüler in Schneider's class. Jopp has received several awards and grants, including the Hogan Lovells Grant (2017), a DAAD Travel Grant to the College for Music and Arts in Montepulciano, Italy (2018), and an Artist in Residence position at Cano-Lasso Architects, Los Angeles (2024). His work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions at Tom Reichstein Contemporary, Hamburg; Mouches Volantes, Cologne; Bilker Bunker, Düsseldorf; salondergegenwart, Hamburg; The Space, Hamburg; and the Sanshang Museum of Contemporary Art, Hangzhou.