Jan Christensen

This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition FORWARD MOMENTUM by Jan Christensen held by Kunsthaus Baselland, Switzerland May 5 - July 2, 2006.


'This monograph devoted to Jan Christensen, published on the occasion of his first institutional solo show at Kunsthaus Baselland, provides a comprehensive overview of the artist's oeuvre. At Basel Museum Night 2006, Christensen created an outdoor installation in the urban setting surrounding Kunsthaus Baselland entitled Exit Basel, the kick-off event, as it were, for this solo show. After obtaining scholarships from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Inc., New York, and the Ingrid Lindbäck Langaard Foundation, Oslo, as well as artist-in-residence periods at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and FRAC des Pays de la Loire in Nantes, the artist now has the chance in this publication and exhibition to take stock of experiences gained over the last few years and to offer new artistic perspectives.

A salient feature of Christensen's work is his extraordinary approach to art-making. Both humorously and intelligently, the artist deconstructs individual elements pertaining to art production, renders them autonomous, and transforms them into the actual work. He incorporates textual as well as graphic elements. A "written picture" for him has the capacity to stress the suggested content, it may lend greater force to a personal or political statement, or - if used compositionally - it may actually turn into a visual product. His works imply or allude to their genesis or their positioning, or they question the search for the attribution of meaning per se. Apart from opting for the appropriation of existing elements and signs, as well as interdisciplinary methods, Christensen often cooperates with other artists, or is invited to work together with them. Networking with various other artists and delving into their approaches allows him, time and again, to come up with complex conceptual works that may take on highly diverse forms, as testified by this publication. My special thanks go to the artist, the authors, the graphic designer, the copy editor, JRP/Ringier, Ingrid Lindbäck Langaard Foundation and the Office for Contemporary Art Norway for their excellent cooperation, input, and support in carrying out this ambitious project.'

Sabine Schaschl-Cooper, Foreword