Jan Kiefer, *1979 in Trier (D) lives and works in Basel (CH)

"…Symbols and words are empty forms filled with stories. For them to establish themselves in our collective knowledge, they must develop their effect through repetition. For example the cross, originally a sacrificial tool, was repeatedly represented and thus became the symbol for a belief system that has prevailed over the last two millennia. Jan Kiefer makes a point about how we still feed the narrative around ancient power structures.
The artist draws from the history of (re)production of images, so that his paintings refer directly to the things we all know, without artifice, to refresh their absurd anachronism in our perception. For example, the two works from a new series (Animals - Then and Now, 2023) present animals as symbols of man‘s excessive abuse of power. From mammoth to dog, exterminated to over-objectified, until the excess of it uncontrollably overwhelms the capacity of our earth.…"
Text excerpt:
Melissa Absarah Torres for the exhibition „Graustufen“

Jan Kiefer's residency was in collaboration with Landis & Gyr-Stiftung.