Kissing surrounded by fireflies, sharing cigarettes after sex and eating an artichoke; ‘Looking for Love’ is a kind of wanted ad in form of oil paintings of various sizes, silver fringe curtains and video performance. The exhibition explores practices, rituals and appropriations of romantic standards. Between personal stories and structural phenomena, Jeanne Jacob addresses the issue of looking for love in a patriarchal system with predefined codes and values.

 

In ‘Good Sex’ (performed in 2019, in Luzern, Switzerland, at the Hors-lits, a performance promenade in different private apartments of the city) Jeanne Jacob wears sports socks, sits on a bed, eats an artichoke and asks questions about sexual preferences and expectations. The artist’s munching of the artichoke is amplified, while she handles the topic of consensual communication.

 

In her paintings, Jeanne Jacob presents a colourful world, where intimacy, fantasy and personal success take the stage and express themselves, interwoven with contradictions, repressed desires or absurd ideas. The characters in the paintings try to be romantic. They are searching for some new lovers who appreciate real, deep hugs and with whom they can share a healthy and humorous look to their vulnerabilities.

 

In the field between strikingness and subtlety, the artist presents a personal and playful approach to the topic of love, romance and sexuality, influenced by queer-feminist literature and contemporary sociology. Jeanne Jacob’s work is obscure, cheeky and honest. She flirts with expectations and celebrates irony.

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Jeanne Jacob is a newcomer artist. Born in 1994 in Neuchâtel, she lives and works Biel/Bienne (Switzerland). After a propaedeutic course in Art design school in Biel/Bienne (2013-2014), she completed her Bachelor of Fine Art at the Lucerne School of Art and Design (Switzerland), where she won the Zeugindesign foundation prize for her bachelors in 2019. Her diploma-work, ‘Hinter dem Blumentopf (Behind the Flowerpot)’ is a series of five oil paintings that explore the space between personal success and social expectations. Jeanne Jacob participated in several small exhibitions throughout Switzerland. She exposed her paintings in underground porn festivals, such as the Lustreifen in Basel and the Schamlos! - queer-feminist porno festival in Bern. She collaborated with Klodin Erb & Band for the performance project ‘Babel and Bubbles’ at the Kunsthalle Zürich and in her latest performance project, she presents together with Jenny Scherer a work about dependence and autonomy in romantic relationships at the Migros Museum Zurich in the Exhibition ‘United by AIDS’. 

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Jeanne Jacob’s perspective on gender, sexuality and love takes its root from queer-feminist and anarchist theories. Her artistic output comprises mainly painting, performing and drawing and is inspired by her political engagement in a social struggle as well as in her everyday life in her community.

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https://jeannejacob.com/