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Jan Albers

Produktive Zerstörung

Jan Albers (b. Wuppertal 1971, grew up in Namibia; lives and works in Düsseldorf) represents a young generation of conceptual artists whose work returns time and again to the language of modernism, scrutinizing it and exploring its expressive dimensions. His objects are neither sculptures nor reliefs; his pictures, neither pure drawing nor painting nor collage. Albers conquers new territory for art, demonstrating that it is, even after modernism and postmodernism, still possible and necessary to create works of art that are new and unlike anything we have seen before. It is not by accident that his art moves nimbly between Nelson Mandela and Ellsworth Kelly: this unusual tension between political engagement and spiritual yearning is what renders Albers’s oeuvre so fascinating and persuasive. His works show that artistic invention and social relevance, far from being mutually exclusive, may in fact sustain each other.

With essays by Kay Heymer, Brigitte Kölle, Stefanie Kreuzer, and Vanessa Joan Müller.