Jacqueline de Jong: The Ultimate Kiss

The Kunstmuseum Ravensburg is presenting the first solo exhibition devoted to the Dutch artist Jacqueline de Jong (b. 1939) at a German museum. De Jong numbers among the most important protagonists of the European postwar avant-garde and has continued right down to today to develop a rebellious, stylistically diverse, lifelong oeuvre.

With more than 80 works, the exhibition offers insights into both her vigorous oeuvre consisting of paintings and prints and her unrelenting activist attitude—from its beginnings in the 1960s all the way to the present. Jacqueline de Jong provided avant-gardist networks such as the Situationist International (S.I.) with one of their few female voices and engaged in close exchanges with artists from the group SPUR and with former members of the artists’ group CoBrA, who constitute one of the focuses of the Selinka Collection of the Kunstmuseum.

As an artist who as a freethinking protagonist had a voice in the male-dominated avant-garde in Paris during the 1960s, de Jong’s beginnings were marked by an active participation in the Situationist International, followed by her work as an editor and graphic designer of the legendary periodical The Situationist Times (1962–1967) and her involvement in the student protests of May 1968. In parallel, she advocated right from the start a painterly practice which, characterized by a playfully provocative humor, deals with essential aspects of human existence through a focus on conflicts and violence, sexuality and eroticism. Her works accordingly unite the human with the monstrous and combine personal observations with media events so as to create pulsing narrative sequences. The exhibition title The Ultimate Kiss is derived from a same-named work that gives pictorial expression to the unity of life and death in an insistently impactful manner.

Curated by Ute Stuffer and Axel Heil.
A collaboration with WIELS, Brussels (BE, Devrim Bayar and Xander Karskens) and MOSTYN, Wales (GB, Juliette Desorgues).

The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive catalogue published by Mercatorfonds. With essays by Devrim Bayar, Juliette Desorgues, Xander Karskens, Annabelle Ténèze and Niña Weijers, as well as a conversation between Jacqueline de Jong and Alison Gingeras. Softcover, 224 pages, 31 x 24 cm, English, 39.95 EUR, ISBN 9789462303201. Available at the Kunstmuseum Ravensburg in connection with the catalogue is a German-language supplement to which has been added an essay by Axel Heil.

Solo exhibitions: Same Player Shoots Again! Jacqueline de Jong and The Situationist Times, Treize, Paris (2020), Malmö Konsthall, Malmö; Museum Jorn, Silkeborg (2019); Pinball Wizard: the Work and Life of Jacqueline de Jong, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2019); Jacqueline de Jong, Les Abattoirs, Toulouse (2018); The Situationist Times: Same Player Shoots Again!, Torpedo/PUB, Oslo (2018); All the King’s Horses/Jacqueline de Jong, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2012); Jacqueline de Jong: Undercover in de kunst, Cobra Museum for Contemporary Art, Amstelveen (2003) et al.

With generous support from the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung, The Mondriaan Fund, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Berlin as well as the General Consulate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Munich.
 

Accompanying program
Thursday, April 7, 7pm, lecture
“Ultimate Loosening, Ultimate Kiss—on Jacqueline de Jong’s ‘Accidental Paintings’” by Prof. Axel Heil, artist, curator, author

Thursday, May 5, 7pm, lecture
“Tying the Knot: The Situationist Times” by Stephanie Weber, curator for contemporary art, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau

Thursday, May 19, 6pm, exhibition tour
with Dr. Margrit Brehm, art historian and author

Thursday, June 10., 6pm, artist’s talk
with Jacqueline de Jong