Julian-Jakob Kneer at Blue Velvet Projects
Solo Show «Shooting Star», April 2 until May 28, 2022
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Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition Title: "Julian-Jakob Kneer at Blue Velvet Projects"
Subtitle: "Solo Show «Shooting Star»"
Blue Velvet Projects is excited to announce SHOOTING STAR, a solo exhibition by Berlin-based Swiss artist Julian-Jakob Kneer. In conversation with the curatorial duo Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou, the artist developed a new body of works and narratives of a dark doppelganger. Set within Kneer’s trilogy devoted to an antihero figure, SHOOTING STAR investigates and presents its mental antechamber. Exploring the monstrous part of celebrity culture, neurotic narcissism as well as the definition and the destruction of the self, SHOOTING STAR deploys ambiguous signifiers infused by a morbid eroticism through new cinematic installations and sculptures. Kneer has been drawing the contours of a character, one could say an alter ego or a projection, whose apparitions are always fragmentary, unstable and deformed. This character without a name is both the star and the fan, the source of envy and the repository of resentment. He had a rib removed to suck his own dick. He is dormant in everyone and apparent only in some. It is said that he could have been kidnapped by the Comprachicos, one of the vilest organisations that Europe has counted. Composed of marginal people with nothing left to lose, this cowardly organization without language or religion specialized in human trafficking. These virtuoso torturers were sculptors of human flesh. Cutting off the limbs of living men, they were said to be street surgeons. Tabloids and celebrity culture were his only natural food. This little hobby was time consuming. Sometimes, he loved to play the bogeyman-twin in Placebo outfits. Demi, Kanye, Hailey or the video-diary of Ricardo Lopez filming himself in his room, obese and haggard, self-hating to the point of suicide and preparing an acid explosive for Bjork's face constituted his notable video-regime. Sometimes he buries himself in his room and listens to Piece of Me by Britney Spears. It reminded him of Luka Rocco Icarus Magnotta, getting caught for checking his mugshot in a Späti in Berlin. When he decided to redesign his room, he went all for the horror-house-cum-alpha-BROthel-boutique-chic. Another major influence was Klaus Biesenbach’s deco. A single bed, a mattress, and a desk. Klaus once told the Times that he hated design. This is what his character is best suited for, an empty space. He is a shooting star. He can project the most abject scenarios and heal his wounds there. We all want a place to go, an emptiness, a Gregor Schneider-like mental void. An antechamber for Kammerspiel fantasies. – Pierre-Alexandre Mateos & Charles Teyssou
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR; view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE REFLECTION. DON'T LOOK IN THE MIRROR. I DON'T CARE. (LUKA), 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR; view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE REFLECTION. DON'T LOOK IN THE MIRROR. I DON'T CARE. (LUKA), 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR; view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, PEOPLE ALWAYS TOLD ME HOW VERY SPECIAL I AM. YOU TOO ARE A SPECIAL ONE. LET US BE SO VERY SPECIAL TOGETHER, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR; view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, WOULD YOU FUCK ME? I'D FUCK ME I'D FUCK ME HARD. I'D FUCK ME SO HARD. (BUFFALO BILL), 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR; view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, WOULD YOU FUCK ME? I'D FUCK ME I'D FUCK ME HARD. I'D FUCK ME SO HARD. (BUFFALO BILL), 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Flavio Karrer / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, DER MANN DER LACHT, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, DER MANN DER LACHT (Detail), 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, LEATHER FACE, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, SHOOTING STAR, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, ROSES ARE RED. VIOLETS ARE BLUE. THE POLICE WILL NEED DENTAL RECORDS TO IDENTIFY YOU. BITCH, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, BIMBO FORTRESS, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, ANDY, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, LAUGHTER HOUSE, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, BIMBO FORTRESS, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, SCUMBAG (LHS), 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, DOPPELGÄNGER, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, DOPPELGÄNGER (Detail), 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, PRODIGY, 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
Exhibition View Julian-Jakob Kneer Solo Show «SHOOTING STAR, view on Julian-Jakob Kneer, PRODIGY (Detail), 2022» at Blue Velvet Projects, Zurich, 2022 / Photo: Nicola Duc / Courtesy: the artist and Blue Velvet Projects
