Jonathan Monk

Jonathan Monk born 1969, Leicester, Great Britain. Lives and works in Berlin.

British artist Jonathan Monk replays, recasts and re-examines seminal works of Conceptual and Minimal art by variously witty, ingenious and irreverent means. Speaking in 2009, he said, “Appropriation is something I have used or worked with in my art since starting art school in 1987. At this time (and still now) I realized that being original was almost impossible, so I tried using what was already available as source material for my own work.” Through wall paintings, monochromes, ephemeral sculpture and photography he reflects on the tendency of contemporary art to devour references, simultaneously paying homage to figures such as Sol LeWitt, Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman and Lawrence Weiner, while demystifying the creative process.

Jonathan Monk presented in numerous institutions: among others, in the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), MoMA, New York, Musée national d’Art Moderne — Centre Georges Pompidou, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, CCA – Center of Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv), Kunsthaus Baselland (Muttenz/Basel), Museo d’arte contemporanea (Rome), IMMA (Dublin), Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (Saratoga), Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt am Main), Museo Jumex (Mexico City), Kunsthalle Zürich, Zacheta – National Gallery of Art (Warsaw), Centre d’edition contemporaine (Geneva), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh), Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich), Israel Museum (Jerusalem). Monk won the Prix du Quartier Des Bains in 2012.

His works are featured in many prestigious collections such as The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, MoMA New York, Collection Lambert en Avignon, Statens museum for kunst (Copenhagen), Daimler Contemporary (Berlin), Tate Britain (London), Moderna Museet (Stockholm).