Marcus Jansen

Marcus Jansen
Marcus Jansen in studio 2015
Born	1968 Manhattan, NY
Nationality	American
Education	Kunstgewerbe Schule Berufskolleg für Technik und Medien am Platz der Republik in Mönchengladbach
Known for	painting,
Movement	Modern Expressionism
Awards	Dave Bown Projects Award 2013
Website
www.unitaspace.com

Art FUSE, New York writes, "Marcus Jansen produces violently exquisite landscapes, haunting combines, and disturbing portraiture, whose originality and powerful social critique rival the aesthetic mastery and intellectual engagement of the greatest artists of the 20th century" and Naples Noteworthy in Florida calls Jansen "One of the most Important American Painters of our Times."

Jansen (born 1968, Manhattan, New York)^[1] is an American born painter.^[2] He attended the Kunstgewerbe Schule Berufskolleg für Technik und Medien am Platz der Republik in Mönchengladbach Germany in 1985 where spent many of his young adult years.

Life and History

Marcus Jansen, took part in his first art exhibition at the Lever House in Manhattan at age six after his painting of lion was selected by a local students school competition in Queens, NY. He started doing art in the early 1980s in Germany during an ongoing graffiti art movement from New York City after being introduced to graffiti artist WEST ONE. Jansen was raised bilingual by a father from Germany and Mother from the West Indies and was educated in Germany. He managed to merge his own history, political/social commentary and background from the worlds he grew up in and from what was called "graffiti" to crossover of contemporary expressionism or neo-expressionism in painting with roots in movements of various European and American expressive art styles.

He returned to painting after his Gulf War Service in 1990 - 1991 where he deployed with the Airborne Units at Fort Bragg NC. Jansen's first book, "Modern Urban-Expressionism",^[3] was published in 2006 by his then French dealer Jean-Marc Alphan in Paris France where he was introduced to Art Auctioneer Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr. The foreword in the book refers to Jansen as the "innovator of "Modern-Expressionism", was written by the former Museum director of traveling exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York and the American Vanguard Exhibitions in Europe 1961 Jerome A. Donson who discovered Jansen in 2004.

Donson arranged international traveling exhibitions with action painters like, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Jansen's first US showcase was at Madison Square Gardens Film & Art Festival in 1999. He has shown in important exhibitions and Biennials in Russia, South Africa, Europe, South America and Asia. In 2008, Jansen was commissioned by Warner Brothers Hollywood for an interpretation of the 1939 story The Wizard of Oz honoring the companies 80th Anniversary and later was noted in Who's Who in American Art and became more widely known for his "Absolut Blank" bottle for "Absolut Vodka", as part of the next Generation of Absolut artist's as he joined the names like Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Damien Hirst. In 2012, Jansen's work "Creeping Obstacles in Kansas", appeared on the cover of No. 94 of the New American Paintings alumni selection by juror Dan Cameron, founder of the Prospect New Orleans Biennial inc., which made Jansen the first Florida based artist to ever do so.

Art

In 2014 Dr. Alan Theisen a music composer broke grounds after being commissioned by FSU College of Music and wrote Gallery, a large-scale woodwind composition that was performed by Force Majeure Quintet at Florida State University making Marcus Jansen the first living contemporary painter known to have a classical movement specifically composed for his art. In this case, his dystopian urban landscape, Creeping Obstacles in Kansas alongside movements composed for already deceased artists like Kustav Klimt, Roy Lichtenstein, Piet Mondrian and Calude Monet. The same year, Naples Noteworthy Magazine in Naples Florida names Jansen, "One of the most Important American Painters of our Times."

Jansen's recent shows include the PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, "Anonymous", Boca Raton Museum of Art, "All Florida", the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery, "eye on the storm" exhibition the Housatonic Museum of Art, "eye of the storm" exhibition. and the The Naples Museum of Art, "Florida Contemporary 2012 and 2014."

Collections

Collections of art that own examples of Jansen's work include: New Britain Museum of American Art,^[4] Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art^[5] the Housatonic Museum of Art^[6] the Moscow Museum of Modern Art,^[7] the Ulyanovsk Museum Fine Arts,^[8] the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts^[9] the, PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art ,^[10] Russia, The Museum Nacional de Brasília^[11] Smithsonian Institution^[12]U.S. Department of State, Art in Embassies Program, UNESCO in Paris France. ^[13]

Jansen is represented by Lazarides, London, UK and Galleria Bianca Maria Rizzi & Matthias Ritter, Milan, Italy

Awards

• 2013 Fleurieu Art Prize Finalist Fleurieu Art Prize, Australia^[14]
• 2013 Laguna Art Prize Arte Laguna Art Prize, Venice, Italy^[15]
• 2012 Dave Bown Prize Dave Bown Projects, United States^[16]

References

External links

• Widewalls
• Naples Noteworthy
• Armory Week, New York
• Art Fuse, New York
• New American Paintings
• Espoarte "A new star is born"? by Igor Zanti
• New York Times
• Rolling Stone
• La Repubblica