1. Geismar

Jårg Geismar - Artist as a philosophical visualist

Hiroshi Minamishima
(art critic, professor of Joshibi University of Art and Design, Tokyo
Commisioner of Japanese Pavillon, 53.Venice Biennial 2009)

Jårg Geismar is a philosophical visualist who utilizes a variety of mediums to interrelate human and the world, human and history, and humans and humans, to create vivid scene where self and the other “reunite”.
“Reunion” is a word that I believe well describes his attitude. The global truth is now constrained by the implanted, homogenous frame of the world, but it originally resides within innate ourselves. I’m sure Geismar has explored to find the way to encounter, or, “reunite” with the truth.
It is obvious that his nomadic experience, drifting along Düsseldorf, Bangkok, New York, and Tokyo has had undeniable impact on his philosophy.
Whatever Topos, places, he resides has different history and culture, but he always has had clear consciousness of being himself as a living existence, while sensing the world through anti-authoritarian objects, all of which are quite ordinary and mundane, like thin wires, transparent sheets, or folk crafts.

The role of art is clearly exemplified here, which is to guide us to discover inherent meaning of the world, history, and human beings, in the manner Wittgenstein contemplated philosophy and the world from linguistic point of view, definitely not by merely providing pragmatic production to the society.