Amsterdam’s Kallenbach Gallery is currently the site for Jaybo‘s new show “The Space Between”. For the first time our friend and supporter (check out his interview with IWISHUSUN here), the Berlin-based artist Jaybo Monk holds a solo exhibition in the capital of the Netherlands which shows an entirely new body of work made on paper, wood and canvas. 12 works, some paper sketches and 3 small installations are on display from this day forward – “The Space Between” not only offers the very unique opportunity to see Jaybo’s first ample experiments with oil as his artistic working material but also to witness an artist’s history in the making: the focus on poetry gets more and more important and so Jaybo’s paintings are accompanied by poems; a poem related to the title of the pieces which is the basis of every work comes along with every painting: “first with the automatic writing of the morning, then put in place around midday” and from afternoon to the evening he would paint on canvas or wood or paper.
It all started with this poem:
the space between
do you see the space between us
barely a hand,
a breath,
a word
it is mountains and oceans
it is either and or, both and neither
it is what we do forget.
all of this
hanging on the nail of fear
For those who are familiar with art history, Jaybo’s latest works clearly refer to past art movement and even though he consistently emphasises that “[s]treet made [him] what [he is] now, to not be afraid of freedom. Paint is just a hobby. Don’t call me an artist, please,” his instense examination of art history and its different movements becomes more and more obvious as time passes. While graffiti and street art defined his early work, he then started searching for new influences, absorbing new impressions taken from art history as well as his environment and to experiment with different extracts. There might be no final result from his openness to new experience regarding style but Jaybo’s latest works unveil a huge impact on his work: in reference to the Dada movement art and literature are combined while his style becomes more and more elaborated, delicate and versed in technique, choice of materials and (line) composition, just as Jaybo states himself: ”I believed to follow or to eflore the surface of dada, which I think the punk movement was the last spark of it.”
But this story ends where it began – in some ways: Just as the Dada artists worked within given artistic concepts and techniques to undermine the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works, Jaybo still remains true to his words: “Don’t call me an artist please.”
A poem finds its place at the back of each piece:
I AM ashes where once I was fire.
I AM sitting, fading, vanishing
I AM alive and so the sun.
I AM between sweet and salt water
I AM a vision in another eye
- – - – -
MY TREE is transparent and give no shade
MY TREE has no roots
MY TREE dance like words in a muted mouth
MY TREE is finishing alone what no one began.
- – - – -
let s get drunk
in the most beautiful glass
drinking to my ugliness
to the gates of my rage
drinking my own legs of
believing again that promise of a better tomorrow
Jaybo: “The Space Between”, 7 – 28 November 2013, Kallenbach Gallery, Amsterdam.
