Jonathan Meese – Biography

in the case of Jonathan Meese . For Jonathan Meese's work is anything but easy to understand, and his life story actually provides the viewer with clues as to why this is so – and why it should be so.

Jonathan Meese is an internationally influenced child, born in Tokyo in 1970 to a German mother and an English father. His parents separated when he was a toddler; his mother returned to Germany with Jonathan and his two older siblings, while his father remained in Japan.

The child quickly experienced his first culture shock: Little Jonathan spoke only Japanese and, as a "foreigner," had considerable difficulties adapting to school. He demonstrably overcame these difficulties in primary school, at least in terms of communication skills; it was certainly enough for university entrance, and Meese graduated from a grammar school in his new hometown of Ahrensburg in 1989.

However, Meese was obviously less clear at that time about what approach to the seriousness of life should follow; according to his own statement, he was a total late bloomer and “was like 16 at the age of 22” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=a389rSne2t0).

So, after graduating from high school, his mother sent him to Scotland to learn English, but upon his return, Meese still had no idea what to do. So, his mother enrolled him in an economics program, which the obedient son enrolled in, but Brigitte Meese herself quickly realized that it was “a total disaster” (Die Weltwoche, issue 26/2006, February 2, 2013).

At the age of 22, Jonathan Meese had his first forward-looking idea and wished for a sketchbook and painting supplies for his birthday, much to the dismay of his single mother, who was also financially burdened by raising him alone.

However, the son prevailed, followed by drawing courses at the adult education center, a room full of easels and large, painted canvases (Meese's bed had to move into the living room due to lack of space), and shortly afterwards the creation of a portfolio, which took about three days, with which he applied to the Hamburg University of Fine Arts under Prof. Franz Erhard Walter and was immediately accepted.

Meese studied from 1995 to 1998, trusting the people who had told him that one could learn art at university. Perhaps he hadn't quite overcome the adjustment difficulties of his early years, or perhaps he was simply using his own mind; in any case, it dawned on him fairly quickly that this approach wouldn't bring him any closer to art.

The entire endeavor of studying ended with a departure without a degree and Meese's conviction that as an artist one must retain the opportunity to criticize the system.

His success was unstoppable; several insiders and experts in his circle had by then recognized Meese as an exceptional talent. As early as winter 1996, he was able to participate in the exhibition project "Glockengeschrei nach Deutz" ( ), a collaborative work by over 40 artists, organized in part by the artist Cosima von Bonin and Daniel Buchholz of the gallery of the same name in Cologne.

His first solo exhibition followed in 1997 at the Kehdingen Art Association, and soon after, he received a commission to design the stage sets for Leander Haußmann's film Sonnenallee. At the suggestion of Daniel Richter, Meese came into contact with and signed a contract with the gallerists Nicole Hackert and Bruno Brunnet of the Berlin gallery "Contemporary Fine Arts" ; CFA remains his gallery to this day.

Meese is now gaining increasing international attention, in 1998 at the Berlin Biennale and in the same year at exhibitions in important European art cities, from the turn of the millennium international exhibitions and from 2004 theater works, in 2006 Meese is counted for the first time among the hundred most important artists in the world.

In addition to a continuously ongoing series of exhibitions, Meese also frequently collaborated with colleagues, in 2006 in the work cycle “The Whip of Memory” with Daniel Richter, in 2009 for “Flesh is harder than steel” with Herbert Volkmann, he also made art with Tim Berresheim, the composer Karlheinz Essl, Jörg Immendorff, Albert Oehlen and the Danish artist Tal R.

Meanwhile, his works have been acquired by important museums and public collections of contemporary art, e.g. the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the Bonn Collection of Contemporary Art of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Centre Pompidou in Paris have secured their share of Meese's work, and a Meese work is also welcome in private collections of modern art, e.g. in the Falckenberg Collection, in the Saatchi Gallery in England and in the Essl Collection in Austria, the Berlin CFA is by no means Meese's only gallery anymore.

Since then, Meese has repeatedly attracted public attention and has been consistently portrayed in a contradictory manner by the press, sometimes as an artist of total mayhem and sometimes as a child prodigy. His work and his statements about it leave all forms of interpretation open…

You can choose to dismiss his art as immature eccentricity and his pronouncements as provocative propaganda, as many real or self-proclaimed art connoisseurs do. However, you could also take a closer look and enjoy Mees's perspective and his unbiased, critical observations about the commercial art world, as many independent thinkers do.

When Meese, in a SPIEGEL interview at the University of Kassel, speaks of “'self-perverted types' and 'self-perverted diarrhea'”, the documenta-weary lateral thinker is reminiscent of the clever line from Sophie Hunger's song “Das Neue”, according to which “30 is the new 20, the man the new woman, Germany the new Turkey, non-smokers the new smokers”.

Of course, you can also follow the advice of the many prominent figures in the art world who have given Jonathan Meese much praise and quickly secure one of his works as an investment.

Whether engaging with biography will actually lead to a better understanding of art seems, in this case, to be essentially a matter of approach.

At least the art market for unconventional and unconnected newcomers has become so small that unconventional art is a refreshment, and we should all certainly pay some attention to ensuring that art in the future does not only develop at art universities under strict adherence to current teaching methods, but that there is still room for talented outsiders.

Incidentally, in 2016 Meese will direct Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal at the 105th Bayreuth Festival, then we can finally not only concern ourselves with Meese's art, but also once again with whether Wagner – especially in Meese's artistic interpretation – really belongs to Germany.

One thing is quite likely: the more you engage with Meese's work, the more questions will arise. Isn't that precisely one of the most important definitions of art itself?

Exciting video series about the controversial artist Meese:

An ant of art