Jared Ginsburg, Two positions (2021) | Motors, bamboo, wooden blocks, installation dimensions variable
Jared Ginsburg uses art-making to explore alternative modes of knowledge production and transfer. He recognizes art as a tool, a means to test and probe the world, hoping to nurture new strategies for productive engagement. Ginsburg employs a range of media types in his practice, including painting, sculpture, drawing, video and performance. Seeking “indeterminacy or chance operations” in his process, Ginsburg’s studio plays a significant role; at once a lab, an instrument and a character in conversation.
To date, Ginsburg has had eleven solo exhibitions, both locally and internationally; most recently Paintings at Ben Hunter Gallery in London (2024) and objects move across a room at blank projects in Cape Town (2023). Group shows include Passage to Promise at Gregor Podnar in Vienna (2023), lO at blank projects, Cape Town (2023), quel jour sommes-nous? at Tokonoma in Kassel (2022), A Line Beyond at AVA Gallery, Cape Town (2021), The thing itself exists everywhere at blank projects, Cape Town (2021), 021 - 2021 at Stevenson, Amsterdam (2021), More for Less at A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town (2018), Artists and Architecture, Variable Dimensions at the Emily Harvey Foundation, New York (2016), and The Morning I Killed A Fly at Galleria Mazzoli, Modena, Italy (2015). In 2018, Ginsburg participated in the Idris Naim residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, culminating in the group exhibition Hacer Noche.
Ginsburg’s work is represented in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago), A4 Arts Foundation (Cape Town), the Rennie Museum (Vancouver) and Astrup Fearnley (Oslo).
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curriculum vitae
1985 Born in Cape Town, South Africa
education
2010 Bachelor of Fine Art, University of Cape Town
solo exhibitions
2024 Paintings, Ben Hunter, London, UK
2023 objects move across a room, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 All my love, Blue Projects, London, UK
2021 Letters, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 Stills, Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria
2020 Hanging Drawings, Maitland Institute, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Measuring Nothing, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 Interludes, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 The Natural World parts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 Body Parts, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 Hoist, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
group exhibitions
2023 Passage to Promise, Gregor Podnar, Vienna, Austria
2023 Fullhouse, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 The Orange River, SixtySix London, London, UK
2023 lO, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 quel jour sommes-nous?, Tokonoma, Kassel, Germany
2021 Works on paper, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 A Line Beyond, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 021 - 2021, Stevenson, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2021 The thing itself exists everywhere, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 the head the hand, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 Sculpture, Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Réunion, Réunion Island
2019 CONDO London, hosted by Corvi-Mora and greengrassi, London, UK
2018 open agenda, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Hacer Noche, Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico
2018 Both, And, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Sculpture, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius
2018 blank, Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin, Germany
2018 Sculpture, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius
2018 More for Less, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 17, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 A Painting Today, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2016 Figure, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2016 I Love You Sugar Kane, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius
2016 Special Projects: Loop with Bamboo III, The Armory Show, New York, USA
2016 Artists and Architecture, Variable Dimensions, Emily Harvey Foundation, New York, USA
2016 3 881 days, blank lab, Cape Town, South Africa
2016 Bootleg Triennial, Atlantic House, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 The Morning I Killed A Fly, Galleria Mazzoli, Modena, Italy
2015 Two Ends of a Line, FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa
2015 Furniture: a sculpture exhibition, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 This is the thing, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 Body Parts, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 blank projects in Johannesburg, Ithuba Arts Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 Housewarming, Atlantic House, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 An Experiment to Test the Destiny of the World, SLICA at Ithuba Arts Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 Bazaar II, Fairweather House, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 blank projects, Art Cologne/NADA 2013, Germany
2012 Independent Publishing Project, Goethe, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Bootleg, Evil Son, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Very Real Time, Paris, France
2012 Coming of Age: 21 years of Artist Proof Studio, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Out of thin air, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Sounding Out,in collaboration with Josh Ginsburg, Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Coming of Age, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 When Form Becomes Attitude, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 Independent Publishing Project, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 / + = X , Serialworks, Cape Town, South Africa
awards
2013 Selected by Business Day’s Wanted magazine as a Young African Artist (YAA)
2010 Michaelis Prize
2010 Simon Gershwin Prize
— publications
2019 Martin, C.J. Four Generations: The Joyner / Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art. Gregory Miller & Co, New York, USA.
2017 Jared Ginsburg. blank projects.
2014 The Collectors, Ginsburg, Ginsburg, Morland.
2014 Standards: A collection of notes and drawings, Jared Ginsburg (self-published).
2011 WC, Jared Ginsburg and Kyle Morland with The Independant Publishing Project.
— selected press
2023 Snowball, J. Stilled Moments: Jared Ginsburg’s ‘Objects Move Across a Room’. ArtThrob [online] (published 20 November 2023).
2019 Exciting new movable and collaborative project space launches in Joburg. Creative Feel. [online] (published 2019).
2017 Stielau, A. If You Have Stage Fright, It Never Goes Away.Adjective [online] (published 22 March 2017).
2017 Kruijers, I. Playing not practicing: Jared Ginsburg’s ‘Interludes‘. ArtThrob [online] (published 6 February 2017).
2015 Jared Ginsburg: THE NATURAL WORLD PARTS 2, 3, 4, 5 AND 6. Contemporary and. [online] (published 2015).
2015 Leibbrandt, T. ‘Re-encountering ideas with joy and excitement: In conversation with Jared Ginsburg’. ArtThrob [online] (published 25 September 2015).
2015 Hunkin, J. ‘The Natural World | A Conversation between Josh and Jared Ginsburg’. Between 10 and 5 [online] (published 21 May 2015).
2015 Messina, M. ‘Jared Ginsburg’s Natural World’. ArtThrob [online] (published 2 July 2015).
2010 To be at the end and in the middle at the same time, Jared Ginsburg with Hotcake Studio, Inc. (exhibition catalogue).
2010 Jared Ginsburg wins the 2010 Michaelis Prize. Art Africa [online](published 9 December 2010).
2019 Martin, C.J. Four Generations: The Joyner / Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art. Gregory Miller & Co, New York, USA.
2017 Jared Ginsburg. blank projects.
2014 The Collectors, Ginsburg, Ginsburg, Morland.
2014 Standards: A collection of notes and drawings, Jared Ginsburg (self-published).
2011 WC, Jared Ginsburg and Kyle Morland with The Independant Publishing Project.
— selected press
2023 Snowball, J. Stilled Moments: Jared Ginsburg’s ‘Objects Move Across a Room’. ArtThrob [online] (published 20 November 2023).
2019 Exciting new movable and collaborative project space launches in Joburg. Creative Feel. [online] (published 2019).
2017 Stielau, A. If You Have Stage Fright, It Never Goes Away.Adjective [online] (published 22 March 2017).
2017 Kruijers, I. Playing not practicing: Jared Ginsburg’s ‘Interludes‘. ArtThrob [online] (published 6 February 2017).
2015 Jared Ginsburg: THE NATURAL WORLD PARTS 2, 3, 4, 5 AND 6. Contemporary and. [online] (published 2015).
2015 Leibbrandt, T. ‘Re-encountering ideas with joy and excitement: In conversation with Jared Ginsburg’. ArtThrob [online] (published 25 September 2015).
2015 Hunkin, J. ‘The Natural World | A Conversation between Josh and Jared Ginsburg’. Between 10 and 5 [online] (published 21 May 2015).
2015 Messina, M. ‘Jared Ginsburg’s Natural World’. ArtThrob [online] (published 2 July 2015).
2010 To be at the end and in the middle at the same time, Jared Ginsburg with Hotcake Studio, Inc. (exhibition catalogue).
2010 Jared Ginsburg wins the 2010 Michaelis Prize. Art Africa [online](published 9 December 2010).
blank is pleased to present objects move across a room,
Jared Ginsburg’s seventh solo exhibition with the gallery.
Exhibition text:
Snowball, S. Stilled Moments: Jared Ginsburg’s ‘Objects Move Across a Room’. Artthrob [online] (published 20 November 2023)
Exhibition text:
Snowball, S. Stilled Moments: Jared Ginsburg’s ‘Objects Move Across a Room’. Artthrob [online] (published 20 November 2023)
At the time of writing, this is what’s happening:
Three canvases are stretched directly onto the walls of the front gallery. The canvases are primed. There is a long drawing implement leaning against the wall; two bamboo lengths taped together, with an oil-stick at one end. The second gallery is empty and for now remains open.
In his letters Ginsburg finds his voice most tolerable. And in making artworks. Are the artworks also letters? Letters is Ginsburg’s sixth show with the gallery.
Three canvases are stretched directly onto the walls of the front gallery. The canvases are primed. There is a long drawing implement leaning against the wall; two bamboo lengths taped together, with an oil-stick at one end. The second gallery is empty and for now remains open.
In his letters Ginsburg finds his voice most tolerable. And in making artworks. Are the artworks also letters? Letters is Ginsburg’s sixth show with the gallery.
blank projects is pleased to announce Measuring Nothing, a solo exhibition by Jared Ginsburg.
‘There is a general rule by means of which the musician can obtain the symphony from the score, and which makes it possible to derive the symphony from the groove on the gramophone record, and using that first rule, to derive the score again. That is what constitutes the inner similarity between these things which seem to be constructed in such entirely different ways.’
– Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.0104)
This exhibition is a constellation of points, rendered from quite different materials (video, sculpture, line) that all in some way describe a mode of investigation. This mode is recognizable to me, but not known to me, in the sense that I can’t speak for, or about it, in any other way, than to offer the discrete points themselves.
Exhibitions of this kind, this being my fifth with the gallery, feel to me like cloud spotting; framed up together, individual co-ordinates can be related to one another, inviting (though often fleeting) insights into the underlying motivations of my uncertain inquiries.
Moving from the studio into the gallery excites transformation – from the laboratory to the shop floor; from private into public; from the known (idiosyncratic inquiry) to the unknown (what can these things mean?).
This transformation has always been generative and always been confusing. Perhaps it is generative because it’s confusing.
I look forward to seeing these remains, traces, instruments, devices that are the works, temporarily sharing the gallery together. Removed from their operational lives as tools and processes, they are afforded an opportunity to speak to each other, to others, and to me.
Jared Ginsburg, 2018
‘There is a general rule by means of which the musician can obtain the symphony from the score, and which makes it possible to derive the symphony from the groove on the gramophone record, and using that first rule, to derive the score again. That is what constitutes the inner similarity between these things which seem to be constructed in such entirely different ways.’
– Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.0104)
This exhibition is a constellation of points, rendered from quite different materials (video, sculpture, line) that all in some way describe a mode of investigation. This mode is recognizable to me, but not known to me, in the sense that I can’t speak for, or about it, in any other way, than to offer the discrete points themselves.
Exhibitions of this kind, this being my fifth with the gallery, feel to me like cloud spotting; framed up together, individual co-ordinates can be related to one another, inviting (though often fleeting) insights into the underlying motivations of my uncertain inquiries.
Moving from the studio into the gallery excites transformation – from the laboratory to the shop floor; from private into public; from the known (idiosyncratic inquiry) to the unknown (what can these things mean?).
This transformation has always been generative and always been confusing. Perhaps it is generative because it’s confusing.
I look forward to seeing these remains, traces, instruments, devices that are the works, temporarily sharing the gallery together. Removed from their operational lives as tools and processes, they are afforded an opportunity to speak to each other, to others, and to me.
Jared Ginsburg, 2018
The plan is to stuff a theatre structure into the gallery space and use it to perform the exhibition, through the staging of various micro-exhibitions…
The time between these micro-exhibitions is the interlude.
blank is pleased to present Interludes, Jared Ginsburg’s fourth solo exhibition.
Mounted as a kind of theatrical production, Ginsburg’s project Interludes employs the apparatus and devices of the theatre (stage, lights, curtains etc.) to “perform the exhibition”. The production is comprised of a series of scenes enacted by artworks, in which these objects stand for players, props and backdrops. Between each of these scenes, or ‘micro-exhibitions’ as Ginsburg calls them, are interludes.
In theatrical terms, an interlude is a musical intermission between acts. While traditionally the interlude is accompanied by music, it refers specifically to the stretch of time between periods of activity, articulating a duration of non-time and non-event. For Ginsburg, these interludes represent opportunities; gaps to be filled until they become performances on their own. Ginsburg states:
The Interlude as Performance has opened up the blockage and brought along many of it’s idea-friends, namely that the interlude need not have a durational constraint and that interlude and scene can be overlapped.
The theatre is a natural home for Ginsburg’s multidisciplinary practice, which spans sculpture, drawing, painting, installation, performance and video. He seeks indeterminacy or chance operations in his process, allowing him to be surprised by the results of his actions. With a visual language reminiscent of Arte Povera, Ginsburg’s work is conceptually grounded in the ambiguities of perception, time and materiality, and the difficulties of consolidating these aspects.
Jared Ginsburg’s third solo exhibition at blank projects, The Natural World parts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 follows on from Hoist and Body Parts, with traces and mutations of both.
Comprising a variety of forms including collage, audiotape, and kinetic sculpture, the exhibition offers results from a studio practice characterised by a coupling of absurd scientific experiment and improvised material play.
In general terms, Ginsburg is invested in the process of art-making as a means to explore alternative modes of knowledge production and transfer. He recognises art as a tool, a means to test and probe the world, hoping to nurture strategies for productive engagement with it. In pursuit of this, he creates rules, games and exercises that propel him into states of play and catalyse reactions between himself and his material partner, be it bamboo, ink, paper or other. The studio is significant in this equation; at once a lab, an instrument and a character in conversation.
What perhaps distinguishes this exhibition from previous processes is Ginsburg’s active redressing of discarded or sidelined works. While Hoist (2011) tested the capacity to transform objects from the mundane world to the symbolic and Body Parts (2013) negotiated a dynamic interplay between sculpture and drawing, The Natural World parts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 seems to be a record of the artist meandering through the studio, seeking out the remainders, the forgotten and the discarded.
The resulting exhibition moves on seamlessly from the previous two while pointing to a particular emphasis of Ginsburg’s current enquiry: an attention and appreciation for the continuous nature of the analogue world, and the disruption of that continuum through the act of discovery.
Comprising a variety of forms including collage, audiotape, and kinetic sculpture, the exhibition offers results from a studio practice characterised by a coupling of absurd scientific experiment and improvised material play.
In general terms, Ginsburg is invested in the process of art-making as a means to explore alternative modes of knowledge production and transfer. He recognises art as a tool, a means to test and probe the world, hoping to nurture strategies for productive engagement with it. In pursuit of this, he creates rules, games and exercises that propel him into states of play and catalyse reactions between himself and his material partner, be it bamboo, ink, paper or other. The studio is significant in this equation; at once a lab, an instrument and a character in conversation.
What perhaps distinguishes this exhibition from previous processes is Ginsburg’s active redressing of discarded or sidelined works. While Hoist (2011) tested the capacity to transform objects from the mundane world to the symbolic and Body Parts (2013) negotiated a dynamic interplay between sculpture and drawing, The Natural World parts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 seems to be a record of the artist meandering through the studio, seeking out the remainders, the forgotten and the discarded.
The resulting exhibition moves on seamlessly from the previous two while pointing to a particular emphasis of Ginsburg’s current enquiry: an attention and appreciation for the continuous nature of the analogue world, and the disruption of that continuum through the act of discovery.
Jared Ginsburg’s latest series of works, Body Parts, is an experiment in figuration and the conversation between pattern, drawing and object. Odd, erotic ink monoprints and carbon copy drawings are developed into outsized sculptures of body parts, manufactured from pieces of canvas that are stitched together and stuffed. These soft body parts trigger more drawing, so that the process is an endless movement from drawing to object and back again. According to Ginsburg, Body Parts is about “figuring things out through either drawing or making”.
‘Body Parts’ is his second solo exhibition at blank projects.
‘Body Parts’ is his second solo exhibition at blank projects.
A variable installation by Jared Ginsburg where selected objects will hang successively within the gallery space, suspended by a cable and a winch. Facilitated by a movement and a rule, Hoist serves to relieve each object of its utility, jogging familiar associations and prompting an alternate engagement.
The objects brought into the gallery space will be collected over the month of October as residue from the Proposal Project, where a group of artists and curators have been invited to perform and materialize ideas over 24-hour periods at a shared artists-studio nearby the gallery.
The objects brought into the gallery space will be collected over the month of October as residue from the Proposal Project, where a group of artists and curators have been invited to perform and materialize ideas over 24-hour periods at a shared artists-studio nearby the gallery.
