Jens Hausmann puts his finger in the wound: the luxurious modern houses that he presents to us in his architectural paintings follow the formal utopia of classic, elegant modernism – but they are full of melancholy, are almost lifeless in their perfection, stand for themselves in their beauty, seem uninhabitable, like fortresses.

Following the footsteps of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier or Richard Neutra, the grand mansion are archetypes of modernism, equipped with its pathos formulas: flying roofs and wide terraces with pools, symbolizing domesticated nature; glass walls alternate with closed, block-like masonry. We are presented with the idea of the house as an abstract sculpture. This is the habitat of modern man, of the „new“ human being; sometimes the shadows of the old world he has overcome lurk in the background.

Against these formalized structures, Hausmann sets his way of production. He starts with reworking at the computer the images he found in magazines or on the internet or that he photographed himself; in a second step, in order to get rid of the photography aesthetics, he draws the motifs and transfers them without technical support to the canvas. Finally, the stroke of the brush when applying the oil paint, oftentimes in several layers, gives the paintings their vibrato, lets them breathe.

Some images originate from Brasil, where Hausmann frequently resides; there he experiences modernism’s demand for totality in a pointed way. He observes that the basic democratic idea of modern architecture has been replaced by demonstrations of power, wealth and luxury. An indication for this is the dominant use of concrete, Le Corbusier’s béton brut.

The wild and rampant growth of tropical plants is set against man’s intention to impose the world fundamental concepts. So Hausmann’s paintings may be seen as new allegories for the old combat of man vs. nature.

Our selection includes works that demonstratively contradict the grand design of the International Style. There is the small shed that seems to mock the idea of “constructivism”. There is the single family house from the suburbs, which in its simplicity follows the Bauhaus idea while at the same time represents the nightmare of a modern house. There is the villa on a slope, which is in danger of slipping at any time. And there’s the “House On the Park”, which the artist even dissected into seven parts. The utopia of modern architecture can hardly be contradicted more fundamentally.

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Please visit our exhibitions with works by Jens Hausmann: Constructivism, Mostly. and Landscape, so Beautiful!. Also, you might be interested in similar works by DAG, Forster Herchenbach, Christopher Sage, Bernhard C. Striebel, Jinny Yu. and the photographs of Maximilian Meisse. Of interest are the pages on the artist on Artitious and his exhibition at the Herforder Kunstverein.

Biography

Jens Hausmann lives in Berlin

Solo shows

For a listing of the group shows, please see the artist’s website.