Christian Jankowski: Sender and Receiver

A key element in Christian Jankowski's (*1968) practice of art involves feeding interventions peppered with humor into media contexts and closed systems. The paths of transmission and moments of disruption materialized in the exhibition Sender and Receiver at Fluentum, which featured a selection of new and previously rarely seen works. The show has been conceptually extended via the eponymous catalogue: Jankowski's art from the past two decades has been documented in extensive photo series and is accompanied by a variety of texts that examine the content in depth. Of particular interest: a piece on the current coronavirus pandemic. In it, the artist gives so-called essential workers a temporary platform on select television formats in order to publicly share their personal experiences and impressions in a time when living conditions have been altered by the pandemic. The result is a complex stratum of unconventional narratives layered on top of television's usual working order.