Talks & Tours with Christian Jankowski

Jankowski’s artistic assessment of Franz Erhard Walther’s work dates back in part to his time as a student at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. Walther was a professor there from 1971 to 2005 and his students included Jankowski, John Bock, Rebecca Horn, Martin Kippenberger and Santiago Sierra. In the online tour, Jana Baumann and Christian Jankowski discuss how Jankowski’s own artistic understanding was partly shaped by his studies with Walther. Walther’s enduring influence on international artistic developments will also be explored. In his text in the exhibition catalog, Jankowski describes the participatory activation of Walther’s works as having a “magic-Walther kick” quality because they are akin to a “sculpture-performance sandwich.”

Christian Jankowski (*1968) lives and works in Berlin. His works are situated in the field of conceptual and performance art, whereby he includes a variety of media and genres such as film, video and photography as well as painting, sculpture and installation. Jankowski initiates collaborations between contemporary visual arts as well as religion, politics and entertainment. His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and in the Tate Modern, London, as well as other leading institutions.