Jan Curtis Larsen
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Jan Larsen[1]
| Jan Curtis Larsen | |
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| Born | 28 July, 1967 Cincinnati, Ohio |
| 🎓 Alma mater | Harvard University University of Oxford |
| 💼 Occupation | Contemporary Artist
Art Curator Entrepreneur Producer Gallery Owner |
| 📆 Years active | 1993 - Present |
| 🌐 Website | https://www.janlarsenart.com/ |
Jan Curtis Larsen (born 28 July, 1967) is an American contemporary artist based in Singapore, London, and New York. Considered one of the most operationally-interesting, entertaining, and culturally-attuned voices in contemporary art, Jan is an active artist whose work reflects on the tenor of our times and the nature of the ‘new normal’.
Early Life
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Jan was raised around works of Art Nouveau, American abstract-expressionism, and modern masters like Pablo Picasso and Alexander Calder.
A high-energy and peripatetic child, he found himself naturally drawn to the works of Vincent Van Gogh. “In the wide-open mind-space of the gallery and the museum, and with Vincent’s work in particular, I felt the presence of a kindred spirit; someone whose work ‘vibrates’ with his passion. I felt calm and at peace, which was unusual for me as a kid.”
Jan’s passion for culture and art was nurtured as an undergraduate at Harvard College, where he studied the cultural and social history of the ‘Age of Democratic Revolution,’ awakening in the Europe’s artistic and intellectual ‘Enlightenment,’ following the Italian Renaissance, and spreading to the rest of the world through the smoky plumes of Europe’s Industrial Revolution, spreading Western cultural and economic influence to the rest of the globe. Jan received his Bachelor’s Degree from Harvard with honours.
He then went on to earn a Masters of Philosophy degree in Management Studies from Oxford University in England, studying marketing and organizational behavior; what he calls “the human side of business.”
Together, these two educational tracks prepared Jan for the development of his artistic enterprise.
Pre-Artistic Career
Raised and educated as a generalist, in his young life as a professional, Jan undertook what he calls “a professional odyssey of sorts, serving leaders and learning in a broad range of industries, from environmental consulting to entertainment production to management consulting, public service, and investment banking – a process I saw as ‘gathering of colors for my palette.’”
In 1993, as employee #8 for a restaurant and performance-venue start-up the House of Blues Jan supported Isaac Tigrett, founder of Hard Rock Café and his management team as they set up the first House Of Blues in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they raised US$50 million in start-up funding for the roll-out of its first phase of expansion, to venues in New Orleans, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Assignments in management consulting, communications consulting, public service, and investment banking followed.
Galleries, Production Studios and Artistic Career
Trained in art-as-process at Boston’s Museum School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Larsen moved to New York in 1997 to start painting, and in the Summer of 2000, he formed his first production company in Lower Manhattan, in an apartment he took over from Brian Donnelly, the artist better known as KAWS, as Brian moved out to his new studio in Brooklyn, New York.
From 2000 to 2015, as he continued to paint, Jan founded, built, and operated four galleries under his name in New York, representing scores of artists, producing hundreds of exhibitions, and loaning works to the US State Department for their Art in Embassies program.
He then diversified into the secondary market for works of art, opening accounts with the Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips auction houses and representing collectors in secondary-market service relationships that continue to this day.
In 2015, Larsen launched his career with a solo show in Manhattan called Market Makers[2].
Artistic Style, Approach and Body of Work
Jan’s work is broadly-engaging of the popular-cultural milieu, incorporating elements of media-saturated pop-art and sheer abstract expressionism in traditional media.
His media-referential pop, playing on current themes in contemporary culture expressed through advertising, social media, and most recently, the COVID-era ‘new normalcy'. They range from digital prints on printing media, mounted under plexiglass, pigments printed onto coated and raw aluminum sheeting, neon signage, and virtual digital motion work, each reflecting on contemporary themes.
Jan’s paintings in traditional media are abstract-expressions in oil and acrylic in the free-flowing expressionist style of American abstract-expressionist painters Jackson Pollack, Franz Kline, and Robert Motherwell, and are built of wood panels with acrylic groundings. His digital colorfield and ‘word-work’ inspirations are inspired by American abstract-expressionist Barnett Newman and the American painter, photographer, and print-maker Ed Ruscha.
"I suppose you could call my aesthetic ‘American Pop,’ and its associated philosophical goals ambitious – I want them to have the sensational impact of the early Damien Hirst, the pristine finishes of a later Jeff Koons, and the cultural impact and productive polish of an Ai Weiwei. Each of these are no mean feats.”, Larsen enthuses.
He also describes his approach as “in the style of Joseph Beuys, in that I see life-as-art, and art-as-process, expressed in a wide range of media.”
Some prime representative samples from Jan’s work series are as follows:
Synchrony
Totems
Heroes
Wordworks
All of Jan's extensive portfolio in various medium and current to the year 2021 is available for viewing and purchase on his online gallery and current physical base of operations.
Present Day - Jan Larsen Studios
Jan Larsen currently resides with his wife and child in Singapore. He runs his his own gallery space, JLA Studios in Robertson Quay, where he operates brick-and-mortar offices, production facilities, and retail fine art and merchandise offerings in Singapore, London, and New York, and online world-wide.
In each location, and virtually online, JLA offers:
- a) sale and installation of Jan’s work
- b) JLA merchandise and a ladies’ line of evening wear, called LadyEmma
- c) special event hosting and management
- d) interior design services
- e) real estate investment and development
- f) strategic management consulting
JLA Fashion
Among the expansive suite of products and services offered through his Studios, Larsen and JLA offer fashion and merchandise under the JLA Fashion corporate sub-division, including LadyEmma, Larsen’s wife Haiyan’s line of couture evening wear.
“LadyEmma is a natural complement to the fine art and merchandise we offer through the Studios – Cathy’s designs are sheer, spare, neat, and classic; elegant and sophisticated designs in silk and velvet for the body.”
JLA Cares
JLA Cares is the cause-related, non-profit arm of Jan Larsen Studios. To date, JLA Cares has donated SGD$60,250 to Singapore Institutions of Public Character, Extra•Ordinary People and Samaritans of Singapore through JLA’s auction house, which Larsen calls Robertson House Auctions.
“I’m very much looking forward to making further contributions to Singapore charities, and in some small way, to continue to contribute to Singapore’s social welfare as we move forward with our development here. It is a very exciting time, here at the Studios, in Singapore, and in the Asian- Pacific region in general.”
Media Coverage
Apart from being featured the popular Singaporean Home and Decor magazine for his gallery space since setting up his new home base in Singapore in 2019, Jan Larsen and his JLA Studios have also enjoyed the unique distinction being mentioned in various forms of media not conventional in the traditional artistic sense; like being featured as 1 of 8 carefully curated best private party [3]venues in Singapore.
He produced 12 exhibitions from 2016 to 2019, and in 2019, before being invited to begin building his production studios for Asia in a colonial-style shophouse in Singapore’s Central Business District River Valley and Robertson Quay neighborhood. It has since been accredited as a ‘heritage house’ by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, with himself and his young family being featured in the country's [4]video as an official induction as a part of the area's illustrious heritage.
This article "Jan Curtis Larsen" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Jan Curtis Larsen. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
- ↑ "Up Close and Personal with Jan Larsen". Home & Decor Singapore. 2021-01-20. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
- ↑ "Market Makers – 2015". Jan Larsen Art. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
- ↑ Src='https://Secure.gravatar.com/Avatar/B168079d1a573c14e0b01dd2b3cac1d8?s=24, <img Alt=; #038;d=mm; Srcset='https://Secure.gravatar.com/Avatar/B168079d1a573c14e0b01dd2b3cac1d8?s=48, #038;r=g'; #038;d=mm; data-eio="l" />AuthorClaudia, #038;r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-24 photo' height='24' width='24' (2021-09-06). "8 Best Private Party Venues in Singapore 2021/2022". Venuerific. Retrieved 2021-12-18. Cite uses deprecated parameter
|class=(help) - ↑ River Valley, retrieved 2021-12-18
