Kathleen Rahn: Article for the catalogue "The Far Side"
ed. Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel l 2006


Everyone knows it from his time in school, you have a fretsaw in your hand and are expected to produce a figure out of a thin piece of wood. At once you remember how the building smelled in which you were supposed to learn. Similarly, everybody knows the photos in the daily news, made of political personalities, taken of events regarded as part of history, but which could easily slip out of our memory if there is no moment of recalling and retrieving them. In his art work Jens Kloppmann selects collective memories and comments on them as fretsaw silhouettes, as photographed-, painted- and sculptural montage pieces and as actionist projects - to place these memories on a new and abstract plane.
 
 
In this series of fretsaw silhouettes you'll find people like the Beatles, Marcel Duchamp, Helmut Kohl and François Mitterand if you take a closer look - they are presented as of the same value and treated accordingly, chained in succession, as if these protagonists are all closely connected with each other. In the end, these may only be figures contained in the artist's archive indicating his view of the world - a watchful work about art- and social history with a smirk.        
 
 
Two blocks of concrete appear first as a minimalistic cuboid, and in its interior the negative shape of two hands shaking each other becomes visibile: two touching hands as a symbol of a close connection, of greeting, of treaty making, or of a gentle touch. Especially the public use of these kinds of gestures comes in mind in the context of Jens Kloppmann's work. One recalls metaphors for political alliances, when the Prime Minister swiftly catches the hand of his American collegue after they had differences of opinion, as soon as the cameras are ready, and often this gesture appears to be awkward and artificial. In the work of Jens Kloppmann these transient gestures remain and persist. Similarly, in the art piece 'shoes of concrete', a gesture is cast and frozen in form. This object reminds of the methods of the Italian Mafia, who put dead bodies concrete shoes on, to sink them in the water. In his art a contrasting interplay of associations are triggered, news stories find themselves on the same level as basic questions of form, for example, concerning the meaning of the negative and the positive, which are again on equal terms with life and death, and the traces of the body marking its trail in space, telling his story.             
 
In the series of C-print montage pieces 'In photographic exile - revenge for Trotzky' Jens Kloppmann transcends history and allows this Russian revolutionary, which was sent to exile by his adversary Stalin, to make a new, ironic appearance. Many years after his death Trotzky shows up as a protagonist in historically important photographs and resurfaces, for example, at Willy Brandt's knee fall at the Warsaw Memorial in 1970, or he is given the role of Nixon in his TV duel with John F. Kennedy (1960), which got legendary status. It is suprising, how familiar the pictures are and only in the second view you notice that Trotsky was smuggled in taking up an ironical and subsersive role, like the artist himself.
 
In his exhibition 'The Other Side' Jens Kloppmann chose works providing an insight into his method of work, where he activates different kinds of memories and tries to bring his influence to bear. The recipient is confronted with history, memories and is even forced to do decoding work, but this is always combined with a sense of humor and wink in one's eye.