Sergej Jensen

Sergej Jensen’s poetic artworks provide a fresh approach to minimalist painting. Constructed from a wide range of textiles, the artist uses additive and subtractive physical methods like bleaching, fraying, or sewing to stand in for the traditional gestures of pure painting. Through these processes, Jensen creates breathtakingly fragile and quiet abstractions that become contemplations of the history and reuse of his chosen materials, and conjure a network of visual and visceral associations from the stains, holes, cracks, and other traces of use that in turn become the primary pictorial elements. His application of pigments, diamond dust, thread, wool, and bleach become part of the treatments whose effects—in some cases—can take years to fully realize. Jensen’s works are installed within the pre-existing conditions of each individual gallery space. As such, interior design elements such as rugs, couches, or other repurposed domestic objects are often combined to create a total and unexpected environment for the viewer.

This was the Berlin-based artist’s first US solo museum exhibition. It was organized in collaboration with Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and includes over twenty-five paintings. The show was accompanied by a monographic catalogue copublished by both institutions, with essays by Aspen Art Museum Director and Chief Curator Heidi Zuckerman, and an interview with the artist by Kunst-Werke Institute Curator Susan Pfeffer.