STEFFEN JOPP - Im künstlichen Gegenüber at TOM REICHSTEIN CONTEMPORARY

March 2nd - April 27th 2024

Stockmeyerstr. 41 Halle 4J. 20457 Hamburg

The new works from the series "Protection from Injury" are divided into the triad of "Deception - Camouflage - Tandem". With these three terms, Jopp points out protective functions that play a significant role in wildlife but are also applied by humans in various ways to shield themselves from injuries and attacks.

This series of works, presented in my current solo exhibition "In Artificial Opposition" at Tom Reichstein Contemporary in Hamburg, Germany, is accompanied by a pictorial

program consisting of C-MRI scans of the human head at three different depths. However, the sculptures on the wall censor a large part of the motive, making it unclear whether there is damage inside this brain or not.

The thin, polished stainless steel sheets are folded together and unfolded again, incised, burnt, and inscribed through engravings. They function as uneven mirrors, reversing the realities by observation and generating digital feedback in physical space. I believe that these works can serve as a vehicle to bridge the physical with the metaphysical and digital world.

This show takes place in cooperation with Nouveau DeuxDeux, Munich.

self portrait as an MRI-Scan

nur kuscheln_nude (only snuggling), 2022/2024 / 146 x 280 x 513 cm / 57 x 110 x 202 inch / aluminium, steel, stainless steel

Schutz vor Verwundung_Tarnung (protection from wounding_camouflage), 2024 / stainless steel, offset color / 186 x 195 x 15 cm (73 x 77 x 6 in)

applied to the wall is a 320 x 250 cm inkjetprint on non-woven wallpaper

Schutz vor Verwundung_Tandem (protection from wounding_tandem), 2024 / stainless steel, offset color / 194 x 200 x 18 cm (76 x 79 x 7 in)

applied to the wall is a 320 x 250 cm inkjetprint on non-woven wallpaper

Schutz vor Verwundung_Täuschung (protection from wounding_deception), 2024 / stainless steel, offset color / 194 x 209 x 15 cm (76 x 81 x 6 in)

applied to the wall is a 320 x 250 cm inkjetprint on non-woven wallpaper

photos by Julian Kuhnke

SCHUTZ VOR VERWUNDUNG AT NOUVEAUX DEUXDEUX

Amalienstrasse 22

80333 Munich, Germany
27 May- 24 June 2023

(English Version below)

Es sind fließende, biomorphe Wesen mit vorder- wie rückseitigen Gesichtern, die an alte Mythen von Naturvölkern, vergangene Zivilisationen anknüpfen. Sie erinnern an Gestaltwandler, Skinwalker, die sich fremder Häute bedienen, aus ihren Fetisch-Tieren Kraft beziehen. Auf Menschenhaut schmiegt sich das Leder, ist selbst Haut mit ausgefransten Rändern, beschwört die eigene Seele wie Gespenster aus einer anderen Sphäre. Solche, die auf Haut vor Haut wie mondbeschienen vor Finsternis fliehen und weiße Feuerzungen nach sich ziehen. Als zugeschnittene Luftpostpapiere materialisieren sie sich wie flüchtige Naturschauspiele, kragen aus in feine Maserungen, mit Acryl gezeichnete Verflechtungen. Die ihnen zu eigene Formensprache bildet zu den Edelstahlgravuren Analogien, scheint kindlicher Fantasie zu entspringen, gleicht comichaften Aufnähern. Archaische Bilder, die ein Gegengewicht zu Materialismus und Zweckrationalismus bilden, Menschen zu ihren Wurzeln zurückführen.

Der Ausstellungstitel „Schutz vor Verwundung“ spannt den Bogen zu Joseph Beuys, insbesondere zum Werkkomplex „Zeige deine Wunde“ im Münchener Lenbachhaus. Vergleichbar der Hirsche bei Beuys finden sich bei Steffen Jopp Zwiewesen mit fein verzweigten Außenorganen, die taktil in die Umgebung ausgreifen, auf mystische Weise mit der Natur verbunden scheinen. Ihre formalen Entsprechungen, welche gemeinsam mit den ausgeschnittenen Gestalten ein unversehrtes Ganzes bilden, sind zugleich Überbleibsel wie Protagonisten, wenn sie als Reliefs auf Millimeterpapier sitzen. Jopp setzt verglichen mit Beuys zeitgenössische Materialien ein, verwendet Leder statt Filz, Edelstahl statt Kupfer, welche Haut schützen, isolieren, Energien leiten. Mit alchemistischer Genauigkeit vermitteln seine Werke zwischen Irdischem und Geistigem, dringen vor bis an den innersten, in seiner Form entblößten Kern. So ist das aufgeklappte Interface nicht wie sonst als Visier vernietet, sondern zum Paneel in die Fläche gebogen. Faltungen und Knicke erzählen von Formverschiebungen, lassen Stahl sich in Wellen wie Pergamentpapier legen. So finden sich in spiegelndem Glanz auf den zweiten Blick Verletzungen scheinbar perfekter Oberfläche, wenn ein Fries aus gravierten Flammen sich von den Rändern zur Mitte hin frisst, glänzende
Offsetfarbe mäandert, sich ausgehend von Brandmalen, Verschweißungspunkten ihren Weg sucht und sich als Geflecht aus feinen Äderchen gleich einer Sepsis im Körper ausbreitet. Mit weit aufgerissenen Augen, Mündern, die als Cut-Outs in die Leere weisen, blicken die Betrachter*innen in ihre eigenen scherenschnittartigen Gesichter.

Angesichts drohender Klimakatastrophe scheint eine Rückbesinnung auf die Natur dringend notwendig, vergiftet ungebrochenes Wirtschaftswachstum die Erde wie ein Krebsgeschwür. Was schützt uns in Zukunft vor toxischer Luft, ungenießbarem Wasser, wiederkehrenden Pandemien? Filigrane Visiere, operative Eingriffe? Oder werden wir gar nicht mehr das Haus verlassen können? Schon heute bilden Avatare in digitalen Räumen eine zweite Haut, sind mit der eigenen Identität untrennbar verbunden, wird das Metaverse uns vielleicht gänzlich zu körperlosen Wesen wandeln. Unsichtbare Visiere, die wir in gesellschaftlicher Maskerade schon heute tragen, unter der das wahre Ich verborgen bleibt. Je länger die Visiere aber aufliegen, desto tiefer schneidet die Welt mit ihren scharfen Kanten in das weiche Fleisch. In der Ausstellung bilden die stählernen Hüllen Schnittstellen, Interfaces, findet die Betrachtung analog statt, kommt das Feedback digital zurück. Auch wenn Jopps Kunst sich verwundbar zeigt, ist bereits die Heilung als Ergebnis eines transformatorischen Prozesses der Erneuerung einbegriffen. Als Zukunftsvisionen, die im Jetzt wurzeln, im Ich wachsen, Schatten in die Zukunft werfen, aber vielleicht in der Betrachtung zu neuen Früchten reifen.

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There are flowing, biomorphic entities with faces on both the front and back, evoking ancient myths of indigenous peoples and past civilizations.

They resemble shape-shifters, Skinwalkers, utilizing foreign skins and drawing strength from their fetish animals. Leather snugly adheres to human skin, becoming skin itself with frayed edges, invoking the soul like ghosts from another realm.

They flee on skin before skin, moonlit against darkness, trailing white tongues of fire. Materializing like cut air mail papers, they resemble fleeting natural spectacles, branching out into fine grainings, intricately drawn interconnections in acrylic. Their unique visual language forms analogies with stainless steel engravings, seemingly originating from childlike imagination, resembling comic-like patches. These archaic images serve as a counterbalance to materialism and utilitarian rationalism, guiding people back to their roots.The exhibition title, "Protection against Injury," connects to Joseph Beuys, especially his series "Show your Wound" at the Lenbachhaus in Munich. Similar to the deer in Beuys' work, Steffen Jopp's dual beings feature finely branched external organs reaching tactily into the environment, mysteriously connected to nature.

Their formal counterparts, forming an intact whole with the cut-out figures, serve as remnants and protagonists when seated as reliefs on millimeter paper. Compared to Beuys, Jopp employs contemporary materials, using leather instead of felt, stainless steel instead of copper, which protect, isolate, and conduct energies. With alchemical precision, his works mediate between the earthly and the spiritual, penetrating to the innermost, exposed core of their form. The unfolded interface, usually riveted as a visor, is bent into the surface as a panel. Folds and creases tell of shape shifts, allowing steel to ripple like parchment paper. Upon closer inspection, mirror-like glimmers reveal injuries on the seemingly perfect surface, as an engraved frieze of flames devours its way from the edges to the center, glossy offset color meanders, originating from burn marks, welding points, seeking its path and spreading like a network of fine veins, akin to sepsis in the body.

With wide-open eyes, mouths pointing as cut-outs into emptiness, viewers gaze into their own silhouetted faces.Amidst the looming climate catastrophe, a return to nature seems urgently necessary, as unbridled economic growth poisons the Earth like a cancerous growth. What will protect us in the future from toxic air, undrinkable water, and recurring pandemics? Delicate visors, surgical interventions? Or will we be unable to leave our homes at all? Today, avatars in digital spaces already form a second skin, inseparably connected to our identity; perhaps the metaverse will transform us into completely disembodied beings.

Invisible visors, already worn in societal masquerade, hide the true self. The longer the visors rest, the deeper the world cuts into the soft flesh with its sharp edges. In the exhibition, the steel shells serve as interfaces, with analog observation, and digital feedback. Although Jopp's art appears vulnerable, healing is already included as the result of a transformative process of renewal. Future visions rooted in the present, growing within the self, casting shadows into the future, and perhaps maturing into new fruits through contemplation.

(translated by AI)

original German Text by Julia Stellmann

"Schutz vor Verwundung" (protection from wound), 2023 / mirror-polished stainless steel, offset color / 192 x 203 cm (76 x 80 inch) (12 cm (5 inch) deep with mount)

"lüstern und schonungslos" (ruthless and salacious), 2023 / mirror-polished stainless steel, cowhide / 135 x 81 x 46 cm (53 x 32 x 18 inch)

"träumerisch und erstaunt" (dreamy and amazed), 2023 / mirror-polished stainless steel / 136 x 87 x 43 cm (54 x 34 x 17 inch)

"jugendlich" (juvenile), 2023 / mirror-polished stainless steel, nickel plated steel / 121 x 90 x 40 cm (48 x 35 x 16 inch)

"hitzig" (fervid), 2023 / ink, acrylic, permanent pen on paper / sheet: 27 x 21cm (11 x 8 inch) with frame: 37,2 x 31,2 x 3,5 cm (15 x 12 x 1 inch) / frame: Red Grandis, artglass

"kontemplativ" (contemplative), 2023 / ink, acrylic, permanent pen on paper / sheet: 27 x 21cm (11 x 8 inch) with frame: 37,2 x 31,2 x 3,5 cm (15 x 12 x 1 inch) / frame: Red Grandis, artglass

left: "vergesslich" (oblivious), 2023 / 83 x 53 x 4 cm (33 x 21 x 2 inch) / cowhide, paper, acrylic (Frame: oiled alder, Artglass)

right: "behände" (nimble), 2023 / 83 x 53 x 4 cm (33 x 21 x 2 inch) / cowhide, paper, acrylic (frame: oiled alder, artglass)

left: "unerbittlich" (relentless), 2023 / 83 x 53 x 4 cm (33 x 21 x 2 Inch) / cowhide, paper, acryl, c-print on paper (frame: oiled alder, artglass)

right:"selbstverloren" (lost in thought), 2023 / 83 x 53 x 4 cm (33 x 21 x 2 Inch) / cowhide, paper (frame: oiled alder, artglass)

Photos by Dirk Tacke

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SERUM at STUDIO FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY

BY STEFFEN JOPP and THIMO FRANKE

"So etwas hatte er außerhalb der Zone noch nie erlebt. Und in der Zone war es nur zwei oder drei Mal passiert. Es war, als befände er sich in einer anderen Welt. Eine Millionen Gerüche strömten auf ihn ein - scharfe, süße, metallische, sanfte, gefährliche, so grob wie Pflastersteine, so zart und und komplex wie Uhrenmechanismen, so groß wie ein Haus und so winzig wie ein Staubkorn. Die Luft wurde hart, sie entwickelte Kanten, Oberflächen und Ecken, als wäre der Raum gefüllt mit riesigen, steifen Ballons, glitschigen Pyramiden, gigantischen stacheligen Kristallen, und er musste sich durch all das hindurchdrängen, seinen Weg in einem Traum durch einen Trödelladen voller alter, hässlicher Möbel ... Es dauerte nur eine Sekunde. Er öffnete die Augen, und alles war weg. Es war keine andere Welt gewesen - es war diese Welt, die ihm eine neue, unbekannte Seite zeigte. Sie offenbarte sich ihm für eine Sekunde und verschwand dann, bevor er Zeit hatte, sie zu begreifen." (Aus "Picknick am Wegesrand" von Arkadi und Boris Strugazki)

Für ihre künstlerische Artikulation verwenden Thimo Franke und Steffen Jopp artifiziell organisch strukturierte Objekte. Die in einer flüchtig essenzhaften Morphologie verschmolzenen Häuser, Spiegel, Schilde, Masken, Haare, Gesichtern, Würmer und Raketentriebwerke, bilden als Biozönose einen Zustand in Wechselwirkung zum menschlichen Körper.

“He had never experienced anything like this before outside the Zone. And it had happened in the Zone only two or three times. It was as though he were in a different world. A million odors cascaded in on him at once—sharp, sweet, metallic, gentle, dangerous ones, as crude as cobblestones, as delicate and complex as watch mechanisms, as huge as a house and as tiny as a dust particle. The air became hard, it developed edges, surfaces, and corners, like space was filled with huge, stiff balloons, slippery pyramids, gigantic prickly crystals, and he had to push his way through it all, making his way in a dream through a junk store stuffed with ancient ugly furniture … It lasted a second. He opened his eyes, and everything was gone. It hadn't been a different world—it was this world turning a new, unknown side to him. This side was revealed to him for a second and then disappeared, before he had time to figure it out.” (From "Roadside Picnic" by Arkadi and Boris Strugazki)

For their artistic articulation, Thimo Franke and Steffen Jopp use artificially organic structured objects. The houses, mirrors, shields, masks, hairs, faces, worms and rocket engines, fused in a fleeting essence-like morphology, creating as a biocoenosis a state in interaction with the human body.

Photos by Andreas Fechner

ordinär (vulgar), 2022 / 62 x 46 x 37 cm / 24 x 18 x 15 inch / aluminium, powder coating varnish, cowhide, acrylic paint

konzentriert und unentschlossen (focused and indecisive), 2022 / 133 x 80 x 45 cm / 52 x 31,5 x 18 inch / stainless steel

left: zugewandt (facing), 2022 / 68 x 46 x 28 cm / 28 x 18 x 11 inch / aluminium, powder coating varnish, acrylic paint

right: neugierig (inquisitive), 2022 / 68 x 45 x 27 cm / 27 x 18 x 11 inch / aluminium, powder coating varnish, acrylic paint

zufrieden und beseelt (pleased and enlivened), 2022 / 131 x 90 x 38,5 cm / 52 x 35 x 15 inch / stainless steel

nur kuscheln (only snuggling), 2022 / 146 x 280 x 513 cm / 57 x 110 x 202 inch / aluminium, cowhide, steel, stainless steel

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Graduation Show at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany on February 14th - 20th, 2022

Four stainless steel surfaces on the wall. each circa 140 x 87 x 43 cm (55 x 34 x 17 inch)

one big hanging stainless steel sculpture in the back center. 90 cm (35 inch) above ground.

circa 260 x 160 x 110 cm (102 x 63 x 43 in) hanging from ceiling (7,3 m / 287 inch) on two

grey coated steel chains.

two light-boxes

uv-direct-print on PMMA, wood, LED lights, cables.

small: 123 x 50 x 8 cm (48 x 20 x 3 inch)

large: 246 x 50 x 10 cm ( 97 x 20 x 4 inch)

The window panes and fluorescent tubes are covered with tinted film.

The ground ins dusty.

The light is gloomy and foggy.

all works from 2022.

Class of Professor Gregor Schneider

photos by Andreas Fechner

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Steffen Jopp

Semihard

Mouches Volantes

13.02–06.03.2021

„Every word has remained inside me as if my consciousness were glass, and the words had been cut into it …”

Spherical harmonies are interspersed with high-frequency sounds, and settle as a soundscape in the Passagen am Ebertplatz. Steffen Jopp’s exhibition Semihard at “Mouches Volantes” can be seen through the window of the exhibition space; yet, as if through a membrane, the interior and exterior spaces are already connected by the sound.

The sound turns into a beat, the artist’s voice resounds. Two different timbres—one artificially distorted, much darker and harder to understand, and Steffen Jopp’s unedited voice—have entered a dialogue with themselves. Together they address an unknown third party: the invisible protagonist of the "love letter" is the Strelitzia Reginae—the bird-of-paradise flower—which had already been the object of Jopp's desire in an installation at the Botanical Garden of Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf in 2019.

“If only all women were like bird-of-paradise flowers, then I would finally be able to relinquish my masculinity.”

Sexual connotations and forms of fragile constructions of masculinity appear repeatedly in the artist’s texts, as well as in his performances and sculptures. In constant self-questioning, he fluctuates between the gender roles imposed on all of us, representing both a macho (almost intrusive) side and, at the same time, revealing his own vulnerability and sensitivity. Both facets often tend towards being-too-much. An unpleasant alienation, which resonates when viewing and listening to his works, has been quite deliberately introduced. Steffen Jopp plays with boundaries, he wants to turn the viewers into unwitting voyeurs by exposing both his body and his entire emotions. We are almost inescapably confronted with his intimate sphere. Yet this savage and simultaneously alienating openness turns into an abstraction of the individual subject; at the moment of transfer into the artistic context, Jopp has already distanced himself from it, the emotional gesture is altered.

Furthermore, this abstracted self towards the self-reflective artist ego reveals itself in Jopp’s approach to his own body. Rather than presenting it in a supposedly idealized form, he treats it as part of his research into materials. For Semihard, he wallpapered the entire exhibition space with an enlarged photograph of his skin. Yet another membrane, this time rather bold, that communicates with the outside world. The high-resolution image of his chest creates an intimacy that, due to the degree of alienation, moves beyond a sexualized contemplation of naked skin. The image becomes detached from its physicality.

Our skin reflects forms of memory. Its markings—in form of scars, wrinkles, tattoos and injuries—invariably refer to something that has passed, despite their presentness. The compaction of that which is remembered creates an asymmetry and rapture in relation to the actual experience. Hyperbole, such as desire and melancholy, are preserved and, in retrospect, believed to be true.

The preoccupation with surfaces is an underlying yet consistent element in Steffen Jopp’s artistic practice. His contemplation of the material, its alienation, alteration, fragmentation and also injury is evident in his early woodcuts, in his process of incising polished stainless steel, and in his approach to his own body, his own skin. They (the surfaces) become a means of communication for the artist ego, which controls the narrative, making it pliable and able to be imposed upon or taken away from the viewer.

Much the same as skin, the objects in Steffen Jopp’s artistic practice also take on the function of storage media. As vessels that accumulate experience, meaning, and pathos, that are repeatedly referred to, processed, and replenished. Steffen is thereby coquetting with his remembered feelings. He deconstructs and exaggerates them, transposes them into phrases—lyrics—that may appear pop-cultural or are abstracted and placed in space as seemingly animalistic sculptures.

Semihard navigates between things: with new works in correspondence with past ones; in the dichotomy of fragile identity construction and obtrusive masculinity; within a harmony of acoustic interference and inscriptions in perfect surfaces; amidst divergent poles, Steffen Jopp’s artistic position situates itself in a time that is fragile and unpredictable, and precisely through its alienation throws off outdated conventions.

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1 Hustvedt, Siri. Memories of the Future (p. 242). Hodder & Stoughton. Kindle Edition.

2 Steffen Jopp, Strelitzia Reginae. Ein Liebesbrief, 2019

Exhibition Text, written by Nicole Trzeja, translated from German into English by Susi Hondl

„Semihard“, Mouches Volantes, Januar 2021, Cologne (DE)

„Epiderm“, 2021, digital print on tile wallpaper, 1400 x 250 cm (46 x 8 ft.)

left: „Weltenfremdes Sexobjekt“, 2021, copper, stainless steel, 176 x 305 x 293 cm (6 x 10 x 10 ft.)

right: „Brutpanzer“, 2021, stainless steel, 104 x 88 x 103 cm (41 x 35 x 40 in.)

back room: „Einsame Form“, 2021, copper, 89 x 81 x 282 cm (35 x 32 x 111 in.)

A sound composition is audible via two bodyshakers attached to the window panes. „Semihard in Paradise“, 2021, 8 min 46 sec, loop

spoken words:

"Ich sah ́ dich und meine Blüte brannte. Du stachst meine Netzhaut. Und noch immer stichst du auf meine Netzhaut ein. Bitte stich mich weiter. Deine Knospen sollen zu Blüten werden. Bitte hebe mich hoch und schleudere mich herum! Stecke mir deine Finger in den Mund! Zieh ́ an meiner Zunge, denn deine Kontrolle ist mein Surfboard. Wenn deine Blätter, groß wie mein Körper, die Wärmelampe verdecken, fühle ich mich geborgen und kalt. Du bist das Meer, ich bin der Salzgehalt. Wenn doch alle Frauen so wären, wie Paradiesvogelblumen, Dann würde ich endlich meine Männlichkeit aufgeben können."

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"I saw you, and my blossom ignited. You pierced my retina. And still, you continue to pierce into my retina. Please keep piercing me. Let your buds transform into blossoms. Please lift me up and whirl me around! Stick your fingers into my mouth! Pull on my tongue, for your control is my surfboard. When your leaves, as large as my body, obscure the heat lamp, I feel sheltered and cold. You are the sea, and I am the salinity. If only all women were like Strelitzias, then I could finally surrender my masculinity."

Photos: Kai Werner Schmidt

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All works from 2017. deformed zinc on steel construction. inkjet prints on paper (epson enhanced semigloss).

photos by Steffen Jopp