ASTRID JAHNSEN ON YOUR KNEES

In 2017, Astrid Jahnsen (b. 1972) acquired in her hometown of Lima, Peru, a set of 82 handmade erotic zines dating from the 1950s to 1990s that combine pornographic photographs with texts.
They form the starting point of Jahnsen's artistic exploration in the project ON YOUR KNEES, for which she made highly subtle close-ups of the explicit visual material. With the help of the camera perspective she has adopted, Jahnsen thwarts the male gaze that once sexualized and objectified women in the image. Instead, she concentrates on the women's gazes, on moments of touch or snatches of sentences in the adjacent texts, and develops a new narrative. Through this expansive installation, this latest acquisition presents a current feminist approach in the context of the long tradition of Appropriation Art.

The exhibition is funded by PIN. Freunde der Pinakothek der Moderne e.V. and the Stiftung Kunstwissenschaft Köln.

The publication is made possible by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung.

Further information on the exhibition on the website of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen.

Sammlung+

Unter dem Titel Sammlung+ präsentieren die Bayerischen Staatsgemäldesammlungen in der Pinakothek der Moderne das Format von Studioausstellungen im Kontext der Sammlung: Präsentationen von Neuerwerbungen, Leihgaben und Künstler*innenräume zeigen die intensive Sammlungs- und Forschungsarbeit, die fachlich fundierte Auseinandersetzung und die Aktualität der Sammlungen.