Jens Semjan
Jens Semjan (born February 13, 1979, Ulm, Germany is a conceptual artist and communication and media theorist.
He studied fine arts from 2001 to 2006 as Master student of Joseph Kosuth at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He currently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium and Munich, Germany. Throughout his career, he works in different media to express his mostly political motivated approaches. In an exhibition at the Baumwollspinnerei in Leipzig, Germany, in 2008, he showed different of his screenprints on steel, which were exposed to the elements for several months and therefore corroded to develop a new picture language. The paper and cardboard model of the Oval Office „Park View Office to Let“ (2007) is a reproduction of 16 sqm, which was exhibited at Art Brussels 2007 in a Solo show by Gallery Traversée. Semjan advocates for a critical survey of the budgetary situation and the priority of educational institutions like schools and kindergartens prior than theaters and art museums: „Also museums and theaters should be provided with the opportunity to sustain an economic activity.“ „The Grand Insolvency Show“ (2010) is a polemic exhibition which focuses on a visionary and liberal idea of visual arts – Statistics. 320 slides with confronting statistics, across a range of global themes, are projected via four Kodak carousel projectors. The exhibition has been edited using publicly available data from global sources, but with the concept of turning serious statistical analysis into engaging art: The curves, columns and pie charts themselves are readymade pictures. Jens Semjan got grants from the Cultural Foundation of Allianz, Erwin and Gisela von Steiner-Foundation and the Karin Abt-Straubinger Foundation. His works are held in different collections including the Allianz SE and Alpine Bau Deutschland AG.
Publications
- Michel Dewilde, Jerome Jacobs: That's all Folks !, Stad Brugge, 2009
- artenews - Arts En Belgique, Bruxelles, 2009
- Holland Papier Biennale 2010, Rijswijk, 2010, ISBN 978-90-801242-6-4