Jens Hoffmann
Jens Hoffmann Mesèn (born 1974 in San José, Costa Rica) is a writer and exhibition maker. He has organzied exhibitions since 1997 and is currently the Director of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco where he also directs the Capp Street Project artist-in-residence program.
Career
Emerging, unusually, from a training in theater rather than art history or curatorial studies, Hoffmann has used his directorial knowledge in particular to articulate his unique approach to curating. Of key importance for all of his exhibitions is the actual staging of the experience—ranging from the design of the space and installation, the conceptualization of the catalog and related programming, to the attention paid to the performance of the work itself. The ‘stage-set’ or rather the exhibition space, site, or geographical location is itself an important factor in the development of his ideas which respond to both time and place. Hoffmann takes into account both the larger historical and socio-political context in which an exhibition takes place as well as the relevant curatorial or art historical relationships pertaining to a project.
Hoffmann was trained as a theater director and studied Stage Directing, Dramaturgy and Cultural Sociology with Andrea Breth of the Schaubühne and Manfred Karge of the Berliner Ensemble at the Ernst Busch School for Performing Arts in Berlin. He holds an MA in Theater from DasArts – School for Advanced Research in Theater and Dance Studies at the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Amsterdam were he studied under the Dutch theater pionier Ritseart ten Cate.
Using the ideas and strategies of artists, in particular conceptual art, and applying this approach to a curatorial idea of the author is a defining characteristic of Hoffmann’s work and results in a highly unique practice and personalized exhibition history reflective of a creative development not dissimilar to that of an artist.
From 1995-1997 Hoffmann worked an Assistant Dramaturge with Tom Stromberg at the legendary Theater Am Tum in Frankfurt. Stromberg and Hoffmann later realized the theater program of Documenta 10 "Theater Sketches" following an invitation by Catherine David. In 1998 Hoffmann became co-curator of the 1st Berlin Biennial which he organized as artistic coordinator with Klaus Biesenbach, Nancy Spector and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
From 2001 to 2002 Hoffmann worked as curator for contemporary art with Jean Hubert Martine, at the Museum Kunst Palast in Dusseldorf where he organized "SPECTACULAR: The Art Of Action," a year long examination of the relationship between performance art and the museum collection with various life stagings and actions though out the museum. Previously he worked for Brussels 2000 - Cultural Capital Of Europe for which he curated, with Barbara Vanderlinden, the program "Indiscipline," a series of talks, lectures performances exploring interdisciplinary between science, art, political theory and architecture though the spoken word.
From 2003 to 2007, Hoffmann was the Director of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He has curated over 30 exhibitions internationally since the late 1990s. Currently he is curating the 9th Shanghai Biennial to open on October 1st at the new Shanghai Museum Of Contemporary Art. He recently was co-curator of the 2nd San Juan Triennial, Puerto Rico, 2009, and was the curator, with Adriano Pedrosa, of the 12th International Istanbul Biennial in 2011. With Harrell Fletcher, Hoffmann developed the People's Biennial. The first edition was presented in 2010 and 2011 at five US museums, organized by Independent Curators International in New York. In 2009 he founded The Exhibitionist: A Journal for Exhibition Making and is editor-at-large of Mousse magazine since 2011.
In 2006 Hoffmann began working with the Kadist Art Foundation based in Paris and San Francisco, for which he has been putting together the 101 Collection, featuring artworks from the West Coast of the United States, as well as El Sur, a collection of artworks by young and emerging Latin American artist.
He is assistant professor at the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice of the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and a adjunct professor at the Nova Academia di Bella Arti in Milan since 2006.
Hoffmann has written more than 150 articles on art and curatorial practice for art magazines such as Artforum, Frieze, Parkett, and others as well as for a wide range of museum publications for example The List Visual Art Center, Boston; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Documenta X, Kassel; 48th Venice Biennial, Venice; 25th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo; 27th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo; 9th Lyon Biennial, Lyon; Musée d’Art Modern de La Ville de Paris, Paris; Palais de Beaux Arts, Brussels; Museum of Contemporary Art - Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Kunst-Werke, Berlin; Fundacio Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona; Museum in Progress, Vienna; Museo Nazionale Delle Arti, Rome; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; The Americas Society, New York; Center d’Arte Santa Monica, Barcelona; P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Portikus, Frankfurt; Arken - Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen; Kunstmuseum Bayreuth, Bayreuth; MUSAC, Leon; Bunkier Sztuki - Gallery for Contemporary Art, Krakow; Nordic Institute of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Manifesta 4, Frankfurt; Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – Instituto de Artes, Rio de Janeiro; Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver; ArtsWay, Hampshire; ArtPace, San Antonio; and others.
His most recent books include The Next Documenta Should be Curated by An Artist (ed.) (Revolver 2004, Frankfurt), Perform, co-authored with Joan Jonas, (Thames & Hudson 2005, London). He is currently authoring SHOW TIME, a history of exhibitions from 1990 to the present, (Thames & Hudson 2012, London), "The Artist's Studio for the series Documents of Contemporary Art (MIT Press and Whitechapel Gallery, 2012, Cambridge and London) was released in May of 2012.
Hoffmann also curated a number of exhibitions for commercial galleries such as Sean Kelly, New York (1998); Casey Kaplan, New York (2003); Klosterfelde, Berlin (2000 & 2006); The Project, Los Angeles (2002); Thomas Dane, London (2007); Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon (2007) and Luisa Strina, Sao Paulo (2008); Johnen Galerie, Berlin (2010) and Kurimanzuto, Mexico City (2010).
Since 2005 Hoffmann has worked as a curator for Art Basel for which he conceived and organized the programs Art Perform (2005-2009), Art on Stage (2006 and 2007) as well as Art Parcours (2010, 2011 and 2012).
Exhibitions he curated include: Contemporary.Self.Portraits, New York (1998); The Show Must Go On, New York (1999); Tropical Modernity (co-curated with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster), Barcelona (1999); Destination Is Wherever It Arrives, London (1999); Blown Away – 6th Caribbean Biennial (co-curated with Maurizio Cattelan), St. Kitts (1999); Indiscipline (co-curated with Barbara Vanderlinden), Brussels (2000); Au-Delà, Berlin (2000); exhibition2, Stockholm (2001); A Little Bit of History Repeated, Berlin (2001); A Show That Will Show That A Show Is Not Only A Show, Los Angeles (2002); Invited to Invite (as part of Manifesta 4), Frankfurt (2002); The Exhibition As A Work Of Art, Rio de Janeiro (2003); SPECTACULAR – The Art of Action, Düsseldorf (2003); The Next Documenta Should Be Curated By An Artist, New York (2003); The World Question Center (Reloaded) (as part of Now What?) Utrecht (2003); Exhibitions of an Exhibition, New York (2003); Institution2, Helsinki (2003); An Exhibition in Words, Caracas (2003-2004); Deutschland sucht, (co-curated with Kathrin Rhomberg), Cologne (2004); A Walk To Remember, Los Angeles (2005); Me, Myself and I, Vancouver (2006); WRONG, Berlin (2006); Stipendium, Hamburg (2006); Home of the Free, Chicago (2006); The Studio (co-curated with Christina Kennedy), Dublin (2006); Very Abstract and Hyper Figurative, London (2007); For Sale, Lisbon (2007); This is Not A Void, Sao Paulo (2008); Chamber Play, Berlin (2010); On The Road, San Antonio (2010); PanAmericana, Mexico City (2010).
His most recent books include The Next Documenta Should be Curated by An Artist (2004), published by Revolver, Frankfurt; Perform, co-authored with Joan Jonas (2005), published by Thames & Hudson, London and The Studio (2011), published MIT, Cambridge and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Currently he is authoring Show Time: A History of Exhibitions, forthcoming with Thames & Hudson (2012). He is also one of the co-authors of Cream 4, published by Phaidon, London (2007), Vitamin PH, Phaidon, London (2006), Vitamin 3D, Phaidon, London (2009) and Vitamin P2, Phaidon, London (2011).
Hoffmann is a member of the curatorial council of PERFORMA – New Art Performance Biennial, New York; and advisory committee member at LAXART in Los Angeles and he sits on the artistic advisory board of the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco. He has participated on numerous selection committees for residencies, scholarships and grants such as the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), Berlin; Art Pace, San Antonio; Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, New Haven; the New National Gallery, Berlin among many others.
Hoffmann has been awarded fellowships, research and travel grants from: IASPIS – International Artists’ Studio Program in Sweden, Stockholm (2000); NIFCA – Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2001); AFAA – Assciation Française d’Action Artistique, Paris (2001); Canada Art Council, Ottawa (2002); DCA – Danish Contemporary Art Foundation, Copenhagen (2002); Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam (2003); Goethe Institute, Munich (2004); OCA - Office for Contemporary Art, Oslo (2005); International Cultural Visits Program Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2008); Creative New Zealand (2009); Japan Foundation, Tokyo (2010), ACAX, Budapest (2010).