Marcus Jansen

Statement

Marcus Jansen was born 1968 in Manhattan New York City, referred to as a cartographer of conflict and recently noted as “One of the most Important American Painters of his generation” by Documenta Kassel curator 1977 and 1987 Prof Dr Manfred Schneckenburger in Munich Germany.

Three decades in the arts, Jansen’s first Biennial invitation was in 2007 at the 12th International Print and Drawing Biennale at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taiwan where he received honorable mentions by among many jurors David Kiehl, from the Whitney Museum of Art, New York and in 2010 was featured on the cover of the art publication New American Paintings No 94.

Son of a West Indian mother and German father, Jansen was first influenced by a rebellious Graffiti art movement from New York in the 1980’s. A former soldier, Jansen was discovered and mentored by former Museum Director and Art Historian Jerome A. Donson, (Director of the American Vanguard Exhibitions Europe 1961 MOMA New York), who curated exhibitions with artists like Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline in the 1960’s. Donson referred to Jansen’s work as being «reminiscent of the Ash-Can School” and named him the “innovator” of modern expressionism in Jansen’s French published catalog in 2005.

Jansen’s first Museum solo exhibition was held at the La Triennale Di Milano Museum, Milan Italy, with collections included in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), The New Britain Museum of American Art, The PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, Ulyanovsk Museum of Fine Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. He was also selected for the Fleurieu Art Prize 2013 exhibition, noted as the highest landscape prize in the world juried by Saatchi Executive Director Nigel Hurst.

Jansen was raised between New York City and Moenchengladbach Germany where he studied at the Kunstgewerbe Schule the Berufsfachschule fuer Gestaltung and completed a three year apprenticeship as a commercial house painter (Maler), where he was first introduced to his current medium of choice, oil enamels. He joined the US Armed Forces in 1989 and was immediately sent to Desert Storm where after his military discharge, Jansen was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress, he started selling paintings on the streets of New York between Prince Street and Broadway as part of the group “Prince Street Kings”,

His first major book titled, “Marcus Jansen – DECADE” was published by the leading art book publisher SKIRA Editore, Italy that features a foreword by notorious London Art Dealer and Jansen’s agent Steve Lazarides and text by the New York curator and Harvard fellow Brooke Lynn Mcgowan followed by his most recent book, titled «Marcus Jansen AFTERMATH», by Hirmer Verlag Munich that holds text by Prof Dr. Manfred Schneckenburger, Documenta Kassel curator 1977/87, Germany’s senior art critic at the Suddeutsche Zeitung, Dr. Gottfried Knapp and a foreword by Art Historian Dr. Dieter Ronte, the Former Museum Director of the Kunst Museum in Bonn and of the Museum Moderner Kunst in Vienna.

Most recently, Jansen was spotlighted in an award winning documentary film titled, «Marcus Jansen – Examine & Report”, a film by Emmy award winning Filmmaker John Scoular and had his first Gallery mid-career retrospective at the Rowland Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco. Jansen’s first German and US Museum survey exhibition will be held at the Zitadelle Museum in Berlin and later at the Baker Museum, Naples in 2018.