Caro Jost
Put Yourself in the Shoes of Someone Else
26/06 — 24/08/2024
Caro Jost’s premiere presentation in Slovenia offers a substantial exploration of the artist’s multi-faceted approach, showcasing both new production as well as an overview of her artistic practice that spans over more than two decades. Jost’s multi-media practice is based on collecting, archiving and ultimately transforming seemingly insignificant, everyday materials – objects, that range everywhere from photographs, legal documents, found materials in the public space to newspaper clippings, invoices and advertisements, which she treats as artifacts, witnesses to a specific time that often carry the burden of memory. This extensive collection of histories serves as a base for all her work.
In the literal sense, by concretely, materially altering the materials, she is able to contain a fleeting moment and give it form, which is often a shaped canvas or paper, “deforming” it into a sculptural piece, a relief, with limited possibility of legibility. Figuratively, she appropriates stories that are not her own, unravels their original significance and creates a new narrative. Whatever remnants of past, she takes them and makes them her own by intervention. What follows is text analysis, or, rather, an analysis of whatever material is on display. Inevitably, Jost’s choice of materials, choice of what to highlight and what to omit, her gaze, which in turn guides our gaze, influence what we see and how we perceive it; positively or negatively, with humor or absurdity, with irony or sincerity.
In doing so, she crafts pieces that offer alternative views of familiar narratives, that challenge us to consider the multifaceted nature of reality and the interconnectedness of our experiences. These artworks invite one to think of another perspective on the human condition, of another way to think - yourself, others, historical events, moments, spaces, social dynamics etc. This invitation can also be understood as a rallying cry in times when empathy is alarmingly absent. The reflective surface of the center mirror piece, Think yourself in the shoes of someone else, is not only in line with the underlying principle of Jost's general practice – how is the depicted image (in this case, ourselves) presented, what do we highlight, what do we erase? – but is also playing into the spatial constellation of the exhibition space and the street outside of it, creating a dynamic link between the gallery and the public sphere, embracing the world at large.
Caro Jost, born in 1965, lives and works between Munich and New York, depending on her art projects. After completing her earlier studies in literature and law, Jost began her artistic career at the Art Students League in New York. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, where she studied with Prof. Jean-Marc Bustamante. In 2020, she received the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for her documentary on the artists of Abstract Expressionism.
She is the founder of the internationally operating, Munich-based off-space EYES ONLY, established in 2014, and is responsible for the exhibition concept.
Her documentaries and works have been the subject of international film and exhibition presentations and are represented in important public collections such as the Jumex Collection, Mexico; the Colby Museum, Waterville, Maine; the Black Mountain College Museum, Asheville; the Mark Rothko Art Center, Daugavpils; the Wemhöner Collection, Berlin; the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam; the ZERO Foundation, Düsseldorf; the Langen Foundation, Hombroich; and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich. Additionally, her works are held in the archives of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York; the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art, Washington; and the MoMA Library Collection, New York.
TEXT: Eva Simonič
COLLABORATION: Britta Rettberg, Munich, DE
PHOTOGRAPHER: Zupanov
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