On the 50th anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s death and 55 years since his works were exhibited in Romania, SUPRAINFINIT Gallery invites the Bucharest public to view the legacy of the renowned artist from a new perspective. The exhibition includes over 35 newly commissioned works by artist Christian Jankowski, which comment on the relationship between the copy and the original in art.

Neue Malerei: Cultural Cubism features the large-scale artwork Neue Malerei–Picasso I, a reinterpretation of the famous Picasso painting–Guernica.

Jankowski’s exhibition concept represents a reversal of Picasso’s work. Since 2015, the artist has been developing an archive of digital images found on the internet in which users recreate famous paintings using gestures, mimicry, costumes, sets, and makeup. Jankowski sends his selection of precisely sized photographs to reputable painters who produce reproductions in Dafen, China. Then they send back the imitations, the only difference being the medium used: photography to painting.

“The Neue Malerei: Cultural Cubism exhibition by artist Christian Jankowski changes the dominant perspective of the ‘master’ in showing strong and empowering tableaux vivants of women. The female characters appearing in Jankowski’s works invite viewers into an active communication process instead of passive contemplation. Furthermore, I believe that such an exhibition, encompassing a constellation of painting, performance, and photography, has the potential to expand the artistic creativity in Bucharest, where artistic and non-artistic disciplines (especially sociology, anthropology, cinema, philosophy, and psychology) are still very much separate,” explains Cristina Vasilescu, Artistic Director of SUPRAINFINIT Gallery.

Neue Malerei: Cultural Cubism is part of artist Christian Jankowski’s third series of conceptual paintings called Neue Malerei (New Painting).

The show at SUPRAINFINIT is well synchronized with the highly anticipated exhibition The Picasso Effect at the Museum of Recent Art in Bucharest, which takes place after a considerable period during which Picasso’s works have yet to be exhibited in Romania. The last presentation of his works in Romania was in 1968 at the National Museum of Art in Romania during the socialist regime.

About Christian Jankowski

Christian Jankowski (born in 1968 in Göttingen, Germany) is one of Germany’s most important contemporary conceptual artists. His works employ techniques from video art, photography, and performance, often incorporating other mediums such as painting, sculpture, and drawing, all designed in continuous dialogue with the formats used by mass media and the mechanisms by which they are produced. Jankowski initiates collaborations between contemporary visual art and other professional worlds, such as religion, business, politics, and entertainment. His practice thus reflects on the concept of collective creation and questions its power, testing images’ role at the social level.

Jankowski’s works have appeared in numerous group exhibitions, such as TICKET TO THE FUTURE with Joseph Beuys, Katinka Bock, and Jon Rafman in 2022; Bangkok Art Biennale in 2020; After Leaving | Before Arriving, Kaunas Biennial, Kaunas, Lithuania in 2019; KNOCK KNOCK, South London Gallery, London. His solo exhibitions include Travelling Artist, Tübingen, Germany, 2022; Sender and Receiver, Fluentum Berlin, 2020; Weather Flag, Jose Garcia, Mexico, 2020; and Floating World, KCUA, South Korea, 2018.

In 2016, Jankowski curated the eleventh edition of Manifesta in Zurich, becoming the first artist to take on this role. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1992, and his works are part of many public and private collections.