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Christian Jankowski

Poster Sale

2005

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Christian Jankowski uses photography and video as a foundation from which to generate participatory experiences that actively criticize our media-saturated society. Often this takes the form of an intervention in an existing aspect of the art world, such as the dealer/artist relationship, the exhibition, the art market, or the means of producing an artwork. In Poster Sale, a series of forty photographs, Jankowski addresses questions of public and communal identity, in particular the ways in which images of popular culture contribute to the construction of individuality. Invited to Washington University in St. Louis for an artist’s lecture and an exhibition in 2002, Jankowski was inspired to photograph students posing with posters they had just purchased at the University’s annual poster sale. Jankowski approached students, discussed with them their poster selection, and invited them to participate in his artwork. These photographs provide a glimpse into the students’ personal interests through their selected images—of consumer goods, film posters, pop and movie stars, pinup girls, works of art, famous buildings. In the photographs the students ultimately become part of the same visual fabric as the pictures they are holding. [Permanent collection label, 2022]

Relationships and Representation: Perspectives on Social Justice Work
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 09/11/2015 - 01/04/2016

Focus on Photography: Recent Acquisitions
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/07/2010 - 07/26/2010

Atrium installation Summer 2007
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/11/2007 - 08/31/2007

Atrium installation Fall 2006 and Spring 2007
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 10/25/2006 - 04/29/2007

10/11/2006
Maccarone, Inc., New York

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