

| Birth | Born in 1970 in Tokyo, Japan |
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| Residency | Lives and works in Berlin and Ahrensburg, Germany |
| Education | 1995–1998 Art Academy, Hamburg, Germany |
| 2025 | GESAMTKUNSTWERK “ERZBUCH”! (BUCH DER BÜCHER), Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen on the Rhine, Germany |
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| ERZ-M.O.Z.A.R.T.” De Gesamtkunstwerk (E.R.Z.) De Largeus! (Hat die Kunst nicht immerz Geburtstag der Totalstliebe?, Mozart-Museen, Salzburg, Austria | |
| 2024 | “Erz-Inkubatorex De Large: Johnny, Das Kunstkind‚ Evolutionärz‘!”, Tichy Ocean Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland |
| “Dracula’s Liebe Mutterz: Böse Leiche?!?”, Wasserkirche Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland | |
| 2023 | DOCTOR-DOC-DR-“HIGH NOON” IS BACK! (WONDERLAND DE LARGE), Templon, Paris, France |
| “ERZKUNSTLIANE DE LARGE (Gesamtkunstwerk Europa)”, Serviceplan / House of Communication, Berlin, Germany | |
| 2020 | Dr. 50/Fifty Meese (Pump Away Reality), Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium |
| 2025 | “Transformative Senses – EMIXAR Berlin II”, Kühlhaus Berlin, Berlin, Germany |
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| Sehnsucht nach Utopia, Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Rolandseck, Germany | |
| Shine Bright Like a Diamond, Kunstmuseum Reutlingen, Reutlingen, Germany | |
| How's My Painting? Malerei aus der Sammlung Falckenberg, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany | |
| 2025 | Énormément bizarre, Center Pompidou, Paris, France |
| 2024 | Eccentric, the Aesthetics of Freedom, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany |
| “Welten in Bewegung – 30 Jahre Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg”, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany |
| 2020 | Lolita (R)evolution (Rufschädigendst) – Ihr Alle seid die Lolita Eurer Selbst!, Schauspiele Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany |
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| 2018 | The New Infinity“, Berliner Festspiele and Planetarium Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Virtual Reality Experience/360° - Film mit Jonathan Meese und seiner Mutter Brigitte, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany |
| 2017 | MONDPARSIFAL ALPHA 1-8 (ERZMUTTERZ DER ABWEHRZ), Opera by Bernhard Lang, Directed by, Set design and Costumes Jonathan Meese, Theater an der Wien, Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria |
| 2016 | Discussion | 100 Years Dada, Jonathan Meese in conversation with Adrian Notz, Art Basel Talks Programm, Basel, Switzerland Press conference of Viennese festivals, Art Basel PK, Basel, Switzerland Kunst und Design. Jonathan Meese im Gespräch mit Robert Eikmeyer, Hochschule Pforzheim, Fakultät für Gestaltung, Pforzheim, Germany |
| 2015 | Talk with federal judge Andreas Mosbacher and Gigi Deppe, about « Art and Law » at the Bundesverfassungsgericht Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany "You", Living in the Erzbox: L.O.V.E. de LARGE (VISIONTELEFON), National Gallery Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Reden aus dem Maschinenraum der Kunst #6. BAYREUTH: EIN MISSVERSTÄNDNIS? Harald Falckenberg under discussion with Jonathan Meese, Roter Salon, Volksbühne, Berlin |
| 2014 | Talk with Clemens Meyer about the book „ Wege zur Diktatur der Kunst“, Literaturhaus München, Munich, Germany Mein Glück und die Diktatur der Kunst. Werner Spies trifft Jonathan Meese, lecture at Lit Cologne, Cologne, Germany |
| 2013 | Round table talk Zukunft der Oper, Deutsche Oper, Berlin, Germany Generaltanz Den Erzschiller (Guido Quiller Ist Der Totalste Don Gin Schiller, Ballettiert Euch, Wie Schnurrl´- Nonninei, Es Bruzzelts: Dr. Schillerz (Schiller Mi On, S.V.P.), Performance, Mannheimer Nationaltheater, Mannheim, Germany Open Your Mouth Art Is No Ideology (Art Is No Political System) Art Is Total Love, Art Is Total Beauty (Art Is No Anarchy, Art Is Chief) -> Art Is Total Power, Art Is The Only Future. "Close Your Mouth", Lecture, Red October Gallery, Moscow, Russia Art is No Ideology (Art is No Democracy) Art is Love. Art is DR. NO, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria | |
| IKOB. Museum für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Eupen, Belgium | |
| SMAK, Ghent, Belgium | |
| Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada | |
| Holstebro Museum, Holstebro, Denmark | |
| Louisiana-Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark | |
| Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark |
Jonathan Meese
Jonathan Meese - Doctor-Doc-Dr."High Noon' is back ! (Wonderland de large)
Laurent Boudier
Im namen der Freiheit : Alexander Kluge und Jonathan Meese im großen Interview
La folie douce de Jonathan Meese
Rencontre Jonathan Meese
Jonathan Meese, peintre de l'excès
Jonathan Meese
Jonathan Meese
Jonathan Meese, ce héros
La Chronique d'Olivier Cena
Médée, l'amour feu
KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM & WIENER FESTWOCHE, VIENNA, AUSTRIAFrom 5/12/2017 to 7/18/2017
»MONDPARSIFAL ALPHA 1-8 (ERZMUTTERZ DER ABWEHRZ)« is the title that Jonathan Meese gave to his outer-space production of an opera by Bernhard Lang, which will premiere at the 2017 Wiener Festwochen festival. As the title suggests, this is a reinterpretation of the subject matter of Richard Wagner’s last opera »Parsifal« (1882). In the Picture Gallery, he now lands a new group of works, flying in like a spaceship. Four places south of the Alps that were home to schools of painters become associative theatrical venues, in which Meese, like in »MONDPARSIFAL,« explores the significance of art for the future, interrogating the Old Masters. At the same time, he responds to them with his own pictures and a Janusface, »CHEF DER KUNST« (the boss of art).
CARRE SAINTE-ANNE, MONTPELLIER, FRANCEFrom 2/15/2017 to 4/30/2017
From February 15 to April 30, 2017, the Carré Sainte-Anne in Montpellier presents “Dr. Merlin de Large, Marquis Zed de Baby-excalibur”, an exhibition by the Berlin artist Jonathan Meese. Blending references to history, legends and science fiction, for the last fifteen years, Jonathan Meese has been juxtaposing different personalities from various modes of expression such as film, opera, video or live performances. The expressionist forms and colours of his paintings are characterised by bold brush strokes and spontaneous scripts on a black background, completed with objects that are glued on. The artist develops his installations out of various items that he has collected. The exhibition refers to the mythical legends of Arthur, as well as to the works of Stanley Kubrik, John Boorman and the Marquis de Sade. It consists of a series of paintings on canvas and ephemeral works created directly on the mouldings of the former church.
CENTRE POMPIDOU-METZ, METZ, FRANCE From 06/29/2016 to 01/16/2017
The work «Love like Blood (dein Junker Meese “Babyface”) » by Jonathan Meese can be seen in this exhibition offering a dialogue between the German and the French art scene since impressionism. Pictures by Auguste Renoir stand alongside Max Libermann’s, the “fauve” André Derain faces flamboyant paintings by the expressionists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and works by Aurélie Nemours and Hans Hartung complete the presentation of a common history and present. The masterpieces from both sides of the Rhine testify of mutual influences and the fascination as well as the research and questionning the other.
AUDITORIUM, UNLIMITED HALL 1, BASEL, SWITZERLANDJune 18th, 2016, 5pm - 6 pm
Discussion | 100 Years Dada Jonathan Meese, in conversation with Adrian Notz, Director, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich. Auditorium, Hall 1 (Hall of the Unlimited sector), Messeplatz, 4005 Basel. Free entrance.
THE NATIONAL GALLERY, PRAGUE From 07/21/2015 to 10/18/2015
On the occasion of the opening of ‘Artists and Prophets/Schiele, Hundertwasser, Kupka, Beuys and Others’, German artist Jonathan Meese proposes a unique performance and installation at the National Gallery in Prague, on July 21 2015 at 8 pm.
LA MAISON ROUGE, FONDATION ANTOINE DE GALBERT, PARIS, FRANCE
From June 14th to September 21st 2014
À l’occasion de son 10e anniversaire, la maison rouge présente du 14 juin au 21 septembre 2014,
Le mur – oeuvres de la collection Antoine de Galbert, onzième volet de la série d’expositions consacrées aux collections privées.
Après dix expositions proposant des univers de collectionneurs variés, cette date anniversaire est l’occasion de montrer enfin largement la collection du fondateur et président de la maison rouge, Antoine de Galbert, une part d’intimité qui lui est chère et qu’il n’a jusqu’à présent que peu dévoilée. Mais à l’inverse des précédents projets autour de collections particulières, réalisés avec des commissaires qui ont fait des choix représentatifs dans de larges corpus d’œuvres, l’accrochage imaginé par Antoine de Galbert comporte cette fois-ci une spécificité remarquable :
« L’idée de cette exposition est née de l’observation quotidienne de ma bibliothèque, où le classement alphabétique des monographies crée d’invraisemblables voisinages. Jean Dubuffet cohabite avec Marcel Duchamp sur le même rayonnage. Cette “arche de Noé” me donne la sensation que tous les artistes naviguent sur le même fleuve pour les mêmes raisons, comme le remarque Christian Boltanski : « Que ce soit Aloïse, moi ou un artiste du 16e siècle, ce sont les mêmes questions qui sont posées : la mort, la recherche de la beauté, la nature, le sexe… Les sujets en art sont très limités. Seuls les mots et les vocabulaires diffèrent (…)». La bibliothèque est tout à la fois archive de la collection, souvenirs visuels d’un long voyage et musée imaginaire du collectionneur. […] Délaissant l’idée déjà explorée par certains commissaires d’expositions, d’un accrochage par ordre alphabétique, j’ai choisi de présenter l’essentiel des œuvres de ma collection, s’accrochant au mur, à l’aide d’un logiciel renseigné seulement par leurs formats (encadrées) et leurs numéros d’inventaires. (…)
image : © Marc Domage
Museum der Moderne, Salzburg
From November 16th 2013 to March 09th 2014 The exhibition in the MdM Mönchsberg aims to provide, for the first time, a survey of the most extensive complex of his œuvre: painting. This was not Meese’s first medium, but came second to drawing, long before he turned to installation and the stage. His first oil paintings date from 1993/4 – the period immediately preceding his academic training. After an interval of several years, during which he devoted himself exclusively to performance and installation, he returned to painting with increased attention. From then on, he transferred his fundamental idea of the stage as a counter-world, and the element of staging, on to large-scale historical paintings. The expressive power of the original, unmistakable painterly language he developed over twenty years has attained a unique status in the contemporary art world.(…)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
From Saturday 25 May 2013 to Sunday 22 September 2013 For the previous edition of ArtZuid in 2011, we combined non-western and western artists and, in the introduction to the catalogue, we considered the historical aspects of such a juxtaposition, known as World Art. We pointed out that in this discussion of western and non-western art, existing relationships were being changed. This is part of the intercultural debate in a global world which, since the 1960s, as a result of mass communications, is becoming a global village. In addition, large-scale migration of workers since the 1960s has created a society in western cities described as multi-cultural. Politically, this coincided with decolonisation. The old ethnology also changed and with it the view of non-western art. Alongside the traditional ‘primitive’ art, attention gradually turned to contemporary artists from non-western countries. Exhibitions such as Magiciens de la Terre in the Centre Pompidou in Paris set a standard. But this was very quickly followed by accusations of aesthetic prejudice against organisers who were thought to regard non-western art as an exotic phenomenon. The mouthpiece for that criticism, Okwui Enwezor, put forward his case in Documenta in Kassel. He limited his selection to artists who worked with socio-political themes. In the catalogue we formulated some objections raised by his approach and which led to an artistic interpretation in which didactic moralism and a politically-correct message set the tone. (…)