udtalelse fra diplom:

A. Jonas Georg Christensens standpunkt ved afgangen fra Billedkunstskolernes Afdeling for Teori og Formidling, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi

Efter at have gennemført det kunst- og æstetikteoretiske præsentationsforløb og bestået de to prøver i den forbindelse, har Jonas Georg Christensen fulgt forelæsninger og afleveret opgaver om æstetisk teori og om samtidskunst.

I foråret 2014 deltog Jonas Georg Christensen i Teori og formidlings studierejse til Beograd, Sarajevo og Dubrovnik: overvejelser i den forbindelse kunne bl.a. ses på udstillingen “Grænsegænger” på Rundgang 2014 med dertil hørende publikation af Visuel Arkivering nr.05, 2014, hvor Jonas Georg Christensens billedbidrag befinder sig på s.3. Dette “tekstbillede” (se denne udtalelses del C) er karakteristisk for Jonas Georg Christensens arbejde med det konceptuelle og mediekunstmæssige i sine billedværker. Det andet register, der har kendetegnet Jonas Georg Christensens studier i teori og formidling, er endnu mere af “partecipatorisk” karakter: det drejer sig om åbne undersøgelsesprocesser, der dokumenteres mere eller mindre regelmæssigt ved hjælp af fotografi (se denne udtalelses del B).

B. Skriftlig afgang: Speciale [...]

C. Kunstnerisk afgang [MFA Degree]

June 10^th 2016 Jonas Georg Christensen presented his work at the dismissal show Afgang 2016 in Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen. The panel discussion was headed by Gerard Byrne and Carsten Juhl with Maria Muhle and Simon Starling as censors. It started with a description of the project by the author and artist: The description corresponds rather well to what is stated on-line: www.afgangskataloget.dk/2016/#jonas-georg-christensen. I.e. the project is partly self-generated and partly open to external understanding from nearly any point of view concerning the relationship between image, picture, text and voice. The presentation of it depended of the wall and evidently the context of school and Kunsthalle, but the rest could be followed visually and interpreted conceptually as a completely open system of variable categories. The plastic formats of the nine pictures (“tekstbilleder” according to the terminology of the artist) consisted in small squares (variable formats with dimensions between 13 and 40 cm. and very often of a rectangular shape) chromatically quoting different art narratives from the epic of the history of art. But due to the presence of text, sound and space-interpretations  (with 2 cubes on different walls and in very different scales) the origin of media-art was also at stake. In his interventions, Gerard Byrne mentioned the influence of the pallet of Victor Vasarely for some of the pictures and stressed that the work of Christensen could not avoid interpellating the question of the role of “attitude” in art. For her part, Maria Muhle also interrogated the question of intentionality asking Christensen why he gave such credit to the viewer. – In his answers Christensen revealed quite an ability to discuss the critique presented to him. So the author was able to introduce several important dimensions in the discussion: the questions of autonomy and immanence of the image, the “materiality” as part of the signification of the image, the secondary role of the presentation of the piece and finally and most importantly the fundamental conceptual problem of how, when and if an image can be convincing. The last point implicates however, that the text in the image and perhaps even the sound of it is able to maintain a discursive impact on the visual perception of the piece.

Carsten Juhl

København, 20. juni 2016