For Artissima’s Back to the Future section, Dürst Britt & Mayhew is proud to present works by Jacqueline de Jong from her ‘Série Noire’ (1981). Inspiration for this body of work came from the French series of crime novels by the same name that have been published since 1945 by Gallimard. During her Paris years in the 1960s, Jacqueline De Jong enjoyed reading these novels. Because the covers of these books offered nothing but imageless black, De Jong decided to take the titles themselves and set about finding pictures to fit the stories. Initially the works served as a personal visual interpretation that emanated the atmosphere of the stories. Later on, Jacqueline de Jong searched for subjects outside of these novels, while still adhering to the inextricable themes of sex and violence.
‘As in a movie poster, using quick, hectic brushstrokes, Jacqueline de Jong sought to create a dramatic sketch of a situation, to capture the literally sensational of the criminal moment, with image and typography in shreds, concentrated into the classic mythical constellation of man and woman or trench coat and hat, coloured with the signs of fear – wide open eyes, the hand clutching the forbidden, blood on the knife blade, flame spewing from the barrel of the revolver, a last kiss between monster and victim.’ – Roberto Ohrt, Undercover in Art, 2003.
Jacqueline de Jong (1939) is revered for founding, editing and publishing The Situationist Times in Paris in the 1960s. By now her publishing, painting and sculpture endeavours have spanned over five decades, in which motifs of eroticism, desire, violence and humour continue to recur. Her longterm involvement and collaboration with Asger Jorn and the legacy of the Cobra movement shine through, but have never stifled the experimental nature of her artistic practice, which is as vital, provocative and contradictory as ever.
Recent solo exhibitions by Jacqueline de Jong include ‘Imagination à Rebours’ at Dürst Britt & Mayhew, ‘Imaginary Disobedience’ at Château Shatto in Los Angeles and ‘Potato Blues’ at onestar press in Paris. Recent group exhibitions include ‘On Plane Air’ at Air de Paris in Paris, ‘Section Littéraire’ at Kunsthalle Bern, ‘Medusa: Jewellery and Taboos’ at Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, ‘The Leftovers’ at Simon Lee Gallery in New York, ‘The Avant Garde won’t give up: Cobra and its legacy’ at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles and ‘Traces – 100 years Asger Jorn’ at Cobra Museum for Modern Art in Amstelveen. Her work is held in various museums and public collections including: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Cobra Museum for Modern Art, Amstelveen; Museum Jorn, Silkeborg; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Kunstmuseum Göteborg; Lenbachhaus, Munich; MCCA Toronto; Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 2019 Jacqueline de Jong will have a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
