Jed Martin, The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory at Kunstverein Hamburg

Artists: Lutz Bacher, Maya Deren, Iris Häussler, Christian Jankowski, Eva Kot’átková, Constantin Luser, Seb Patane & Black To Comm, Jochen Schmith, Stefan Vogel, Christopher Williams, Christoph Luser, Anne Müller, Michael Weber

Exhibition title: Jed Martin, The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory

Curated by: Bettina Steinbrügge, Anita Schmid and Christoph Luser

Venue: Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Date: April 22 – June 18, 2017

Photography: Fred Dott, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Kunstverein Hamburg

“I would love to be an artist / To recreate the world / To be an anarchist / To live like a millionaire!”

Jed Martin, born in 1975, is one of the most important contemporary French artists. With digitally manipulated Michelin street maps, he had already presented an impressive, distanced reflection on the state of the world in his early work. In 2010, a sudden change occured in Martin’s work, after which he increasingly turned to figurative painting. In his hitherto most productive phase, he created the Series of Simple Professions with which he achieved his international breakthrough. Today they are sold for millions at auctions. The best-known picture of the series—not least due to his tragic story—is Michel Houellebecq, Writer, a portrait of the author of The Map and the Territory made just a few months before his brutal decapitation by an art thief in spring of 2018. The value of the picture, which is now in private ownership again, was estimated at around 12 million euros after Houellebecq’s death.
Jed Martin is probably living reclusively in the Parisian Département Creuse. The Deutsche SchauSpielHaus and the Kunstverein in Hamburg present works by the artist and celebrate him in a major retrospective.

The events start at the SchauSpielHaus, where theatrical festivities with art and artists will take place in honor of Jed Martin.
Afterwards, the audience and the artists will walk together to the Kunstverein (around ten minutes by foot). On each evening of the event, an opening of the exhibition Jed Martin – The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory will take place.
Tickets and further information here.

Cast: Lutz Bacher, Maya Deren, Iris Häussler, Christian Jankowski, Eva Kot’átková, Constantin Luser, Seb Patane & Black To Comm, Jochen Schmith, Stefan Vogel, Christopher Williams (Kunstverein) / Christoph Luser, Anne Müller, Michael Weber (Schauspielhaus)

Idea and concept: Anita Schmid, Christoph Luser / Curated by: Bettina Steinbrügge, Anita Schmid and Christoph Luser / Stage design: Franz Dittrich / Costumes: Astrid Klein / Dramaturgy: Bastian Lomsché

The exhibition is realized with the friendly support of the Ministry of Culture of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, and the Mara & Holger Cassens-Stiftung.

Stefan Vogel, Gebrache, 2017, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Christian Jankowski, Neue Malerei (New Painting), Géricault, 2017, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Eva Kot’atkova, Theatre of Speaking Objects, 2012, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Constantin Luser, Der grosse Rückblick, 2014, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Lutz Bacher, The Road, 2007, Ausstellungsansicht, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Christopher Williams, KIEV MC ARSAT (ZODIAK-8), 2005, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Jochen Schmith, Picnic Blanket, 2017, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Seb Patane & Black to Comm, Abdomen, 2013 – 2017, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Iris Häussler, Joseph Wagenbachs Traum ist Iris Häusslers Albtraum, 2017, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Jed Martin – The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory, 2017, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Jed Martin – The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory, 2017, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Jed Martin – The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory, 2017, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Jed Martin – The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory, 2017, exhibition view, Kunstverein in Hamburg

Jed Martin – The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory, 2017, Schauspielhaus in Hamburg

Jed Martin – The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory, 2017, Schauspielhaus in Hamburg

Jed Martin – The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory, 2017, Schauspielhaus in Hamburg