Jonathan Monk is one of the most outstanding British artists of his generation. He received a BFA from Leicester Polytechnic in 1988 and an MFA from Glasgow School of Art in 1991. Since the 1990s, he has been producing multidisciplinary work, using a wide variety of materials and techniques based on appropriation and semantic and formal play with works by prominent pop, conceptual and minimalist artists from the 1960s and 1970s. In his work, he ironically transfers their utopian and mythical character to banal issues from his own experience or personal environment, satirising some of the concepts attributed to them in traditional notions of art, such as originality, authorship, exhibition spaces and the art market. He uses the written word extensively in his work, either as a component of the pieces or through the titles. He employs it to alter, emphasise or shift the referent to which it alludes towards an ironic or satirical meaning.
His work has enjoyed major international projection and has been shown at events such as the Berlin Biennial (2001), the Venice Biennale (2003, 2009) and the Whitney Museum Biennial (New York, 2003). He has also featured in solo exhibitions at the Museum Kunst Palast (Düsseldorf, Germany, 2003); the Institute of Contemporary Art (London, 2005); Kunstverein Hannover (Hannover, 2006); the Palais de Tokyo and the Musee d'Art Moderne (Paris, 2008); the Malaga Centre for Contemporary Art (2013); the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin, 2014); the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma (Rome, 2015); and the Kunsthaus Baselland (Muttenz, Switzerland, 2016), among others. In 2012 he won the Prix du Quartier Des Bains de Genève.
Jonathan Monk is one of the most outstanding British artists of his generation. He received a BFA from Leicester Polytechnic in 1988 and an MFA from Glasgow School of Art in 1991. Since the 1990s, he has been producing multidisciplinary work, using a wide variety of materials and techniques based on appropriation and semantic and formal play with works by prominent pop, conceptual and minimalist artists from the 1960s and 1970s. In his work, he ironically transfers their utopian and mythical character to banal issues from his own experience or personal environment, satirising some of the concepts attributed to them in traditional notions of art, such as originality, authorship, exhibition spaces and the art market. He uses the written word extensively in his work, either as a component of the pieces or through the titles. He employs it to alter, emphasise or shift the referent to which it alludes towards an ironic or satirical meaning.
His work has enjoyed major international projection and has been shown at events such as the Berlin Biennial (2001), the Venice Biennale (2003, 2009) and the Whitney Museum Biennial (New York, 2003). He has also featured in solo exhibitions at the Museum Kunst Palast (Düsseldorf, Germany, 2003); the Institute of Contemporary Art (London, 2005); Kunstverein Hannover (Hannover, 2006); the Palais de Tokyo and the Musee d'Art Moderne (Paris, 2008); the Malaga Centre for Contemporary Art (2013); the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin, 2014); the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma (Rome, 2015); and the Kunsthaus Baselland (Muttenz, Switzerland, 2016), among others. In 2012 he won the Prix du Quartier Des Bains de Genève.