C.T. Jasper

Christian Tomaszewski, known as C.T. Jasper (born 1971 in Gdańsk, Poland), initially published his early works under various names before adopting the alias “C.T. Jasper” in 2013. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, receiving a Master of Fine Arts in 1996. Shortly after graduating, Jasper moved to New York City, residing in Brooklyn. Since 2015, he has collaborated with artist Joanna Malinowska, with whom he jointly represented Poland at the 56th Venice Art Biennale in 2015. Jasper has been an artist in residence at the The Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, The International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York City, and Artpace in San Antonio, and a visiting artist at the The American Academy in Rome.. His work has been exhibited in Poland, North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Caribbean. He is currently an assistant professor in the Sculpture Faculty at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jasper's awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from The Jerome Foundation, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The Kosciuszko Foundation, and the Fellowship of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

C.T. Jasper works in various artistic media, particularly video-art, often incorporating elements of science fiction. His illustrations, installations, and videos explore modern utopias, post-colonial history, and sociopolitical themes, with a focus on cinematography.

His early series of pencil illustrations Hunting for Pheasants, created between 2007 and 2008, depicts assassinated public figures, such as Indira Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Grigori Rasputin, and Leon Trotsky, with some illustrations imitating tabloid styles. Jasper's subsequent works include the installation Erased (2012), which uses cinematographic images.Krzysztof Kosciuczuk, Christian Tomaszewski, Frieze Magazine, Issue 152, January–February, 2013. Erased was first shown at Le Guern Gallery in Warsaw, Poland, in 2012. It was later shown in 2013 at The Standard in Hollywood, and in 2015 at the Museum of Art in Łódź in a joint exhibition with Joanna Malinowska entitled Związki rozwiązki/ Relations Disrelations. The work Sunset of the Pharaohs was first prepared for the Frieze Art Fair in New York City (2014).Ken Johnson, Martha Schwendener, Strolling an Island of Creativity. Two Critics Sample the Frieze Art Fair, The New York Times, May 9, 2014.

In 2015, Jasper collaborated with Joanna Malinowska and curator Magdalena Moskalewicz on Halka / Haiti: 18° 48'05" N 72° 23'01" W,[https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/when-a-humanities-scholar-cries-at-the-opera Nicholas Till, When a Humanities Scholar Cries at the Opera, The Times Higher Educational, September 1, 2016] a project commissioned by Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland.[http://www.zacheta.art.pl/en/page/view/147/exhibitions-polish-pavilion-in-venice Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150711084215/http://www.zacheta.art.pl/en/page/view/147/exhibitions-polish-pavilion-in-venice |date=2015-07-11 }} It was presented at the Polish Pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale.Halka/Haiti 18°48'05"N 72°23'01"W. C.T. Jasper & Joanna Malinowska, ed. Magdalena Moskalewicz, graphic design: Project Projects, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Inventory Press, Warsaw, New York, 2015[http://www.biennialfoundation.org/2015/03/joanna-malinowska-and-c-t-jasper-to-represent-poland-at-the-56th-venice-biennale-2015/ Biennial Foundation][http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/exhibition/national-participations/ La Biennale di Venezia] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706033629/http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/exhibition/national-participations/ |date=2017-07-06 }}{{Cite web|url=http://culture.pl/en/work/halkahaiti-joanna-malinowska-ct-jasper|title = Halka/Haiti - Joanna Malinowska, C.T. Jasper}}

In 2015, Jasper and Malinowska also staged the opera Halka by Stanisław Moniuszko,Dina Akhmadeeva, Venice Biennale: must-see art from the 'new east' – in pictures, The Guardian, May 14, 2015 in Cazale, Haiti, a town inhabited by descendants of Polish soldiers from Napoleon's legions.Ginevra Bria, Biennale di Venezia. Il Padiglione della Polonia raccontato da C.T. Jasper e Joanna Malinowska, Artribune, May 5, 201510 Dinge, die man in Venedig nicht verpassen sollte, Monopol. Magazin für Kunst und Leben, May 9, 2015Adrian Searle, Venice Biennale: the world is more than enough, The Guardian, May 11, 2015Lilly Wei, Poland's Venice Pavilion Explores Haiti's Polish Connection, ARTNEWS, April 29, 2015 In the same year, Jasper and Joanna Malinowska began working on the project Bureau of Masks Inventory, which was shown at the exhibition [http://galeria-arsenal.pl/wystawy/obrzedy-powszednie-i-odswietne Daily and Religious Rituals] curated by Michał Jachuła at the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok, Poland.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

In 2016, Jasper and Malinowska received a commission from the High Line in New York City for The Emperor's Canary. It was presented at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France.{{Cite web |title=C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska: The Domestic Plane |url=https://aap.cornell.edu/news-events/exhibition/ct-jasper-and-joanna-malinowska-domestic-plane |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240729043630/https://aap.cornell.edu/news-events/exhibition/ct-jasper-and-joanna-malinowska-domestic-plane |archive-date=July 29, 2024 |access-date=December 31, 2024 |website=Cornell AAP Architecture, Art, Planning}} The installation comprises two gramophones, one playing a recording of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the other a recording of a person with black lung disease.

Jasper's works are included in the following public and private collections in Poland and abroad:

• Museum of Art in Łódź[http://zbiory.muzeumsztuki.pl/navigart/select?id=search&content=christian%20tomaszewski Museum of Art in Łódź, Poland - Collection]
• Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw[https://zacheta.art.pl/en/kolekcja/katalog/halka-haiti-184805n-722301w?setlang=1 Zachęta - National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland - Collection]
• ING Polish Art Foundation[https://media.ingbank.pl/informacje-prasowe/3224/pr/249661/prace-z-cyklu-polowanie-na-bazanty-w-kolekcji-fundacji-sztuki-polskiej-ing Prace z cyklu „Polowanie na bażanty" w kolekcji Fundacji Sztuki Polskiej ING]
• Hirshhorn Museum in Washington[https://hirshhorn.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Press_Release_New_Acquisitions_June2015.pdf Hirshhorn Acquires Works by Diverse Slate of International Artists for Collection]

Jasper has had solo exhibitions at SculptureCenter, New York City;{{cite news | author=Martha Schwendener | title=Strolling Within the Strange World of Blue Velvet | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/arts/design/08scul.html | work=The New York Times | date=2007-06-08 | accessdate=2017-07-03}} Tufts University Art Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts; Michael Wiesehoefer Gallery, Cologne, Germany; Frieze Art Fair, New York City; Museum of Art, Łódź, Poland (with Joanna Malinowska);Karol Sienkiewicz, Apokalipsa i magia, Dwutygodnik.com, March, 2015 Polish Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia - 56th International Art Exhibition;{{cite web |url=http://www.zacheta.art.pl/en/article/view/2185/halka-haiti-18-48-05-n-72-23-01-w-c-t-jasper-joanna-malinowska |title=Halka/Haiti 18°48'05"N 72°23'01"W C.T. Jasper & Joanna Malinowska - exhibitions | Polish Pavilion in Venice - Zachęta – Narodowa Galeria Sztuki |access-date=2015-11-19 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151026145538/http://www.zacheta.art.pl/en/article/view/2185/halka-haiti-18-48-05-n-72-23-01-w-c-t-jasper-joanna-malinowska |archive-date=2015-10-26 }} Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, and Analix Forever, in collaboration with Joanna Malinowska, Geneva, Switzerland. Group exhibitions include the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York City; Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland; Performa '09 –the Third Biennial of Performance Art, New York City; Athens Biennale, Greece; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico; National State Gallery, Gdańsk, Poland; International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Gothenburg, Sweden; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Galeria Arsenal, Bialystok, Poland; Halka/Haiti: Return to Vilnius, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2016; New/ Newly Discovered, [https://leguern.pl/en Galeria Le Guern], Warsaw, Poland; The Message: New Media Works, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, National Mall, Washington D.C., District Of Columbia, USA, in 2017; Greater Together, ACCA, Australian Center for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia, in 2017; Jurassic Garden, Galeria Le Guern, Warsaw, Poland, in 2020; and Making New Worlds Instead of Forgetting About It, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland, in 2024.

{{Reflist}}

• {{official|http://www.ctjasper.com/}}
• [http://leguern.pl/en/artists/C-T-Jasper/ C.T. Jasper at Le Guern Gallery's website]
• [http://culture.pl/en/artist/ct-jasper/ C.T. Jasper at Culture.pl]
• [http://www.biennialfoundation.org/2015/03/joanna-malinowska-and-c-t-jasper-to-represent-poland-at-the-56th-venice-biennale-2015/ C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska at Biennial Foundation's website]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150711084215/http://www.zacheta.art.pl/en/page/view/147/exhibitions-polish-pavilion-in-venice C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska at Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland]
• [https://tyler.temple.edu/faculty/ct-jasper C.T. Jasper's Biography at Tyler School of Art's website]
• [https://ingart.pl/en/kolekcja/artysci/christian_tomaszewski The ING Polish Art Foundation Website]

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Category:1971 births

Category:Living people

Category:Artists from Gdańsk

Category:Video artists

Category:Polish contemporary artists