Jeff Wassmann
Encyclopedia
Jeff Wassmann is an American artist and writer, currently living in Melbourne, Australia. Wassmann's work incorporates assemblage
, photography, web-based new media
and aspects of culture jamming
.
, the youngest of four children. His retired father was an engineer and worked in the steel industry. His mother trained as a chemist and research librarian, later worked as a school librarian and was active in local politics. He grew up in a family with a strong feminist legacy; his paternal grandmother ran the office of Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot
; his maternal grandmother taught at the American University of Beirut
Hospital.
At the age of seven Wassmann contracted rheumatic fever
, was hospitalised and left with a heart murmur. Two years later, his older brother (one of three siblings) developed juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, leaving him unable to walk unassisted for the next several years. During these periods of confinement, the two acquired early mutual interests in photography, art and architecture that would define their work in later years. His brother would become a well-known acoustical architect in New England. Despite restrictions on his activity, Wassmann became an avid cyclist and skater and as a teenager was an all-star in Pittsburgh's regional hockey league. He travelled to Timaru, New Zealand in 1975 as an exchange student. He graduated from North Allegheny High School in Wexford, Pennsylvania
the following year.
's mentor, friend and colleague, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod
, at Northwestern University
's Institute for African Studies in Chicago, where he majored in political science and international studies. As a part of his course-work at Northwestern, Wassmann studied painting with Ed Pashke and his then assistant Jeff Koons
. He later studied parliamentary politics in Wellington, New Zealand as a Richter Scholar before returning to Chicago, where he worked variously as an artist, writer and photojournalist. He emigrated to Australia in 1989.
and his paradigm of the non-linearity of time, applied to both contemporary culture and recent antecedents in the history of Modern art
.
As an artist, Wassmann works under the nom de plume of the pioneering German modernist Johann Dieter Wassmann
(1841–1898). He is the creator of two equally fictitious institutions, The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. and MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. Wassmann's conceit received worldwide exposure after a solo exhibition of his work, titled Bleeding Napoleon, was included in curator Juliana Engberg's visual arts program for the Melbourne International Arts Festival
2003. Through the character of Johann Dieter Wassmann, the artist explores his personal vision of the lost opportunity of inseparable time and space as he imagines it might have been optimistically perceived in the hours before the dawn of the catastrophic twentieth century. In creating the character of Johann Dieter Wassmann and bestowing on him all the art world accoutrements a dead artist needs – the well-endowed American foundation, the cadre of curators, the Flash-driven website and the European roots – the contemporary artist has been quietly, and with some success, ‘placing’ the dead artist into the Western canon.
This co-existence of artist and character nearly two centuries apart, experiencing similar realities, the artist sees not as a hoax, but as illustration of his view of the non-linearity of time and more particularly a defiance of the rigidly linear perspective of art criticism
. Here Wassmann draws heavily on the work of the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski
(1864–1909) and his oft-quoted passage:
In doing so, Wassmann raises questions about our prescribed notion of progress, concurrent with the views of the conceptual artist Tino Sehgal
. In an unusual move for a contemporary artist, Wassmann does not sell his work; some pieces are given away as gifts, while most have been retained as part of a broader private collection of 18th and 19th century antiques and ephemera
that are exhibited as the estate of the character (see #Gallery section below). The project is the subject of a film that remains in development under the working title, The Foundation, with funding provided by Film Victoria. Producer: Richard Moore. In Australia, Wassmann's work is sometimes associated with an art movement known as superfiction
. In 2004, Art in America
's Washington, D.C. correspondent, James Mahoney, wrote,
Wassmann continues to publish as a writer and photojournalist. His work has appeared in publications including The New York Times
, The Christian Science Monitor
, The Economist
, Fortune
and The Times
(London). He was awarded the Grand Prix at the inaugural International Cibachrome Awards in 1980. Four years later, his work took the notice of Philip Jones Griffiths
, the Welsh photographer and then president of Magnum Photos
, who put forward Wassmann's portfolio for nomination to the esteemed French photo agency. No photographers were accepted for membership to Magnum in 1984, but it was on the encouragement of Jones Griffiths that Wassmann began actively writing articles to accompany his photographs, later attending the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. He was nominated for the Bates Smart McCutcheon Award for Architectural Journalism in 1992. In 2004 he was awarded a Creative Fellowship by the State Library of Victoria
.
In 2006 Wassmann was honoured as a Governor of the National Gallery of Victoria
. He served as a board member of the Australian Art Orchestra from 2006 to 2009. He is also founding director of Bleeding Napoleon Pty Ltd, a not-for-profit arts charity funding performance and installation
works. In this role, he has co-produced two works by the playwright Brian Lipson: Bergasse 19, for the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2005 and A Large Attendance In The Antechamber
, which saw a three week run at the Sydney Opera House
in July 2006.
In recent years he has collaborated with jazz pianist and Adelaide Festival director Paul Grabowsky
in the making of several albums, including Tales of Time and Space (Warner/Chappell), recorded in New York with Branford Marsalis
and Joe Lovano
; the ARIA Music Awards
-winning Before Time Could Change Us (Warner/Chappell) with Katie Noonan
, libretto by Dorothy Porter
and Ruby (AAO), with Ruby Hunter
and Archie Roach
.
Assemblage (art)
Assemblage is an artistic process. In the visual arts, it consists of making three-dimensional or two-dimensional artistic compositions by putting together found objects...
, photography, web-based new media
New media art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
and aspects of culture jamming
Culture jamming
Culture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
.
Early life
Wassmann was born in Mars, PennsylvaniaMars, Pennsylvania
Mars is a borough in Butler County, Pennsylvania, USA. The population was 1,746 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Mars is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of , all of it land....
, the youngest of four children. His retired father was an engineer and worked in the steel industry. His mother trained as a chemist and research librarian, later worked as a school librarian and was active in local politics. He grew up in a family with a strong feminist legacy; his paternal grandmother ran the office of Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...
; his maternal grandmother taught at the American University of Beirut
American University of Beirut
The American University of Beirut is a private, independent university in Beirut, Lebanon. It was founded as the Syrian Protestant College by American missionaries in 1866...
Hospital.
At the age of seven Wassmann contracted rheumatic fever
Rheumatic fever
Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease that occurs following a Streptococcus pyogenes infection, such as strep throat or scarlet fever. Believed to be caused by antibody cross-reactivity that can involve the heart, joints, skin, and brain, the illness typically develops two to three weeks after...
, was hospitalised and left with a heart murmur. Two years later, his older brother (one of three siblings) developed juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, leaving him unable to walk unassisted for the next several years. During these periods of confinement, the two acquired early mutual interests in photography, art and architecture that would define their work in later years. His brother would become a well-known acoustical architect in New England. Despite restrictions on his activity, Wassmann became an avid cyclist and skater and as a teenager was an all-star in Pittsburgh's regional hockey league. He travelled to Timaru, New Zealand in 1975 as an exchange student. He graduated from North Allegheny High School in Wexford, Pennsylvania
Wexford, Pennsylvania
Wexford is an unincorporated community in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The area known as Wexford is split among multiple municipalities, including Franklin Park, McCandless, Pine Township, and Marshall Township...
the following year.
Education
Wassmann studied postcolonial theory in the 1970s with Edward SaidEdward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
's mentor, friend and colleague, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod
Ibrahim Abu-Lughod
Ibrahim Abu-Lughod was a Palestinian academic, characterised by Edward Said as "Palestine's foremost academic and intellectual" and by Rashid Khalidi as one of the first Arab-American scholars to have a really serious effect on the way the Middle East is portrayed in political science and in...
, at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
's Institute for African Studies in Chicago, where he majored in political science and international studies. As a part of his course-work at Northwestern, Wassmann studied painting with Ed Pashke and his then assistant Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
. He later studied parliamentary politics in Wellington, New Zealand as a Richter Scholar before returning to Chicago, where he worked variously as an artist, writer and photojournalist. He emigrated to Australia in 1989.
Work
In his art and writings, Wassmann expresses fascination with Leibniz's reductionismReductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
and his paradigm of the non-linearity of time, applied to both contemporary culture and recent antecedents in the history of Modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
.
As an artist, Wassmann works under the nom de plume of the pioneering German modernist Johann Dieter Wassmann
Johann Dieter Wassmann
Johann Dieter Wassmann is a fictitious artist and sewerage engineer, purportedly from Leipzig, Germany. He is the creation of the American-born artist and writer Jeff Wassmann.-Background:...
(1841–1898). He is the creator of two equally fictitious institutions, The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. and MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. Wassmann's conceit received worldwide exposure after a solo exhibition of his work, titled Bleeding Napoleon, was included in curator Juliana Engberg's visual arts program for the Melbourne International Arts Festival
Melbourne International Arts Festival
Melbourne Festival is a celebration of dance, theatre, music, visual arts, multimedia, outdoor and free events held for 17 days each October in a number of venues across Melbourne, Australia.-History:...
2003. Through the character of Johann Dieter Wassmann, the artist explores his personal vision of the lost opportunity of inseparable time and space as he imagines it might have been optimistically perceived in the hours before the dawn of the catastrophic twentieth century. In creating the character of Johann Dieter Wassmann and bestowing on him all the art world accoutrements a dead artist needs – the well-endowed American foundation, the cadre of curators, the Flash-driven website and the European roots – the contemporary artist has been quietly, and with some success, ‘placing’ the dead artist into the Western canon.
This co-existence of artist and character nearly two centuries apart, experiencing similar realities, the artist sees not as a hoax, but as illustration of his view of the non-linearity of time and more particularly a defiance of the rigidly linear perspective of art criticism
Art criticism
Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art.Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty...
. Here Wassmann draws heavily on the work of the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski
Hermann Minkowski
Hermann Minkowski was a German mathematician of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, who created and developed the geometry of numbers and who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity.- Life and work :Hermann Minkowski was born...
(1864–1909) and his oft-quoted passage:
In doing so, Wassmann raises questions about our prescribed notion of progress, concurrent with the views of the conceptual artist Tino Sehgal
Tino Sehgal
Tino Sehgal is a British-German artist based in Berlin. His works, which he calls "constructed situations", involve one or more people carrying out instructions conceived by the artist.-Early life and education:...
. In an unusual move for a contemporary artist, Wassmann does not sell his work; some pieces are given away as gifts, while most have been retained as part of a broader private collection of 18th and 19th century antiques and ephemera
Ephemera
Ephemera are transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters,...
that are exhibited as the estate of the character (see #Gallery section below). The project is the subject of a film that remains in development under the working title, The Foundation, with funding provided by Film Victoria. Producer: Richard Moore. In Australia, Wassmann's work is sometimes associated with an art movement known as superfiction
Superfiction
A Superfiction is a visual or conceptual artwork which uses fiction and appropriation to mirror organizations, business structures, and/or the lives of invented individuals . The term was coined by Glasgow-born artist Peter Hill in 1989...
. In 2004, Art in America
Art in America
Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...
's Washington, D.C. correspondent, James Mahoney, wrote,
Wassmann continues to publish as a writer and photojournalist. His work has appeared in publications including The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
, The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
, Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
(London). He was awarded the Grand Prix at the inaugural International Cibachrome Awards in 1980. Four years later, his work took the notice of Philip Jones Griffiths
Philip Jones Griffiths
Philip Jones Griffiths was a Welsh photojournalist known for his coverage of the Vietnam war.- Biography :...
, the Welsh photographer and then president of Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo...
, who put forward Wassmann's portfolio for nomination to the esteemed French photo agency. No photographers were accepted for membership to Magnum in 1984, but it was on the encouragement of Jones Griffiths that Wassmann began actively writing articles to accompany his photographs, later attending the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. He was nominated for the Bates Smart McCutcheon Award for Architectural Journalism in 1992. In 2004 he was awarded a Creative Fellowship by the State Library of Victoria
State Library of Victoria
The State Library of Victoria is the central library of the state of Victoria, Australia, located in Melbourne. It is on the block bounded by Swanston, La Trobe, Russell, and Little Lonsdale streets, in the northern centre of the central business district...
.
In 2006 Wassmann was honoured as a Governor of the National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
. He served as a board member of the Australian Art Orchestra from 2006 to 2009. He is also founding director of Bleeding Napoleon Pty Ltd, a not-for-profit arts charity funding performance and installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
works. In this role, he has co-produced two works by the playwright Brian Lipson: Bergasse 19, for the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2005 and A Large Attendance In The Antechamber
A Large Attendance In The Antechamber
A Large Attendance In The Antechamber is a one-man play by Brian Lipson about Francis Galton the English scientist, statistician and founder of the eugenics movement....
, which saw a three week run at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
in July 2006.
In recent years he has collaborated with jazz pianist and Adelaide Festival director Paul Grabowsky
Paul Grabowsky
-Biography:Grabowsky was born on 27 September 1958 in Lae, Papua New Guinea; his father Alistair had lived in Papua New Guinea with his wife Charlotte since the 1930s working on oil rigs, building roads, flying planes and playing the drums...
in the making of several albums, including Tales of Time and Space (Warner/Chappell), recorded in New York with Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque.-Biography:Marsalis was born...
and Joe Lovano
Joe Lovano
Joseph Salvatore "Joe" Lovano is a post bop jazz saxophonist, alto clarinetist, flautist, and drummer. Since the late 1980s, Lovano has been one of the world's premiere tenor saxophone players, earning a Grammy award and several nods on Down Beat magazine's critics' and readers' polls...
; the ARIA Music Awards
ARIA Music Awards
The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Australian Recording Industry Association...
-winning Before Time Could Change Us (Warner/Chappell) with Katie Noonan
Katie Noonan
Katie Anne Noonan is an Australian singer-songwriter. In addition to a successful solo career encompassing opera, jazz, pop, rock and dance, she sings in the groups george and Elixir, duets with her mother, Maggie Noonan and is currently playing with support from the group The...
, libretto by Dorothy Porter
Dorothy Porter
Dorothy Featherstone Porter was an Australian poet.-Early life:Porter was born in Sydney. Her father was barrister Chester Porter and her mother, Jean, was a high school chemistry teacher. Porter attended the Queenwood School for Girls...
and Ruby (AAO), with Ruby Hunter
Ruby Hunter
Ruby Charlotte Margaret Hunter was an Australian singer and songwriter. She was a member of the Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal nationality, and often performed with her partner, Archie Roach, whom she met at the age of 16, while both were homeless teenagers...
and Archie Roach
Archie Roach
Archie Roach is an Australian musician. A singer, songwriter and guitarist, he survived a turbulent upbringing to develop into a powerful voice for Indigenous Australians, a storyteller in the tradition of his ancestors, and a nationally popular and respected artist.- Biography :In his own words,...
.
Personal life
In April 2008 Wassmann was diagnosed with chronic heart failure. On June 2, 2008 he underwent open-heart surgery at Melbourne's Epworth Hospital for repair of the mitral valve. The surgery was successful, allowing Wassmann to return to the studio later in the year. Wassmann is married, with three children. In June 2011 his wife, Melinda Geertz, was a co-recipient of the both a Golden Lion and the Grand Pris award at the Cannes Festival of Creativity for her work on disability awareness.External links
- Melbourne Age, October 11, 2003
- Wassmann Foundation
- MuseumZeitraum Leipzig
- National Gallery of Victoria
- Melbourne Age, October 5, 2003