Conceptual and appropriation artist, Jonathan Rosen, recently debuted his “I Want to Dream” exhibition at colette in Paris. The transformative and thought-provoking exhibition included twelve pieces, and eight new canvases made specifically for the show. Following the prestigious exhibition in Paris, Rosen will begin a residency and exhibition in Sydney, Australia with Palmer Art Projects and will be a featured panel speaker at South by Southwest (SXSW) in 2016.
Rosen – a former award-winning advertising creative with assignments in London, New York, Amsterdam and Sydney – traversed into the art world only two and a half years ago. His unparalleled vision combines visceral, highly graphic collages utilizing a diverse array of pop culture ephemera and materials with bold headlines of desire.
Inspired by the Yoko Ono quote, “A dream you dream alone is only a dream, a dream you dream together is reality,”Rosen’s ‘I WANT TO DREAM’ exhibition is an invitation to reveal our deepest desires, and to dream collectively. Through this show, Rosen brings his personal wants and dreams quite literally to the surface for an intimate engagement with themes of hope, ambition, and loneliness. Rosen’s twelve, large canvasses each address various ‘wants’ of the artist: from wanting to escape, to wanting to be bad, wanting to be found. Each ‘dream’ the artist expresses in these works are deeply personal while at the same time universally resonant.
Each 48” x 72”’ artwork in the exhibition will have the letters ‘I WANT…’ carved into the canvases’ surface, creating a window of negative space that evokes a reminder: that to dream, risks remaining unfulfilled. The canvases are then shrouded in the material histories that Rosen has collected. Once sourced from Rosen’s personal collections – which included concert stubs and love letters – he now invents with artifacts of others; materials that are either in synthesis or ambivalence with the message of the piece.
The series includes: ‘I WANT TO BE A WINNER’, which reveals layers of scratch off lottery tickets in a playful critique of commodity culture. ‘I WANT TO FLY’ is covered in pristine white feathers, where the artist longs for the impossible. ‘I WANT TO DREAM’, a panel turned blackboard, allows the audience to dream along with the artist, while the temporariness of the chalk reminds us how fleeting our dreams can be. Every day people will write their dreams down and every night it will be immortalized on colette’s Instagram (@colette) before being wiped clean again.
Jonathan Rosen said: “I’m very excited to have my first European show at colette in Paris. The convergence of high-fashion, art, design and commerce, makes colette an ideal place for dreaming. By revealing my dreams through these new pieces of art, I hope to inspire and encourage others to do the same.”
About Jonathan Rosen
Jonathan Rosen is a NYC-based conceptual and appropriation artist whose contemporary works are expressed through collage on canvas and panel. Pulling inspiration from his former life as an advertising creative where he manufactured dreams for consumers, he now explores those authentic desires and aspirations that people keep hidden away. His work is in international collections in New York, Sydney, London, Paris and Toronto including The Livestrong Foundation. Additionally Rosen is a founder and CEO of an art-technology startup, launching early 2016, that will help artists of all disciplines find sought after career opportunities. His work has been featured in international arts & culture publications and is owned in collections worldwide, as well as a signature piece with The Livestrong Foundation.
About colette
colette, located along 213 rue Saint-Honoré in Paris first opened its doors in March 1997. Aiming to reinvent the concept of retail in its seven hundred square-meter establishment. Through chance encounters, travels and discoveries, new products and new brands are consistently greeted at colette. Exclusivities, pre-releases, limited editions, established designers, new talents and even forgotten labels…a unique approach combining modernity, originality and upmost quality. This is the colette spirit: an inimitable mix and match, modeled after its customers, and bringing people together. Reactive, determined, influential and passionate, visionary and spontaneous, these are perhaps keywords to describe colette.