Jonas Monka

A00121
Sprengel Museum Hannover

Humanoide Wolkenkratzer

Jonas Monka makes installations that integrate anthropomorphic sculptures into the exhibition space to produce multifaceted presentations that grapple with hypercapitalism, social justice, and the sense of the bodily self and its place and responsibility in society as well as physical space. Imposing, overwhelmingly present, the phallus-like creations rear up in a provocative gesture that puts their corporeality on almost obscene display.
A question that is always on Monka’s mind is how architecture manifests power differentials: in A00121, he examines the commercialization of airspace in New York City, where he spent two months in 2019, undertaking research on which his critical examination of the phenomenon and its political and social implications is based. New York’s so-called “supertalls” bear witness to private capital’s triumph over public space. Unsettlingly, they resemble erect phalluses, the epitome of a private reality that has been and still is strictly taboo in our public imageries.

The catalogue accompanies the exhibition held as part of SPRENGEL@FEINKUNST with writings by Titania Seidl, Kabir Carter, Annette Jacoby, and Benedikt Fahrnschon. The catalog was designed by Parissa Charghi. Launched in 2019, the collaboration between the Sprengel Museum Hannover and feinkunst e.V. is dedicated to young contemporary art from Lower Saxony.