Jonathan Meese Tokyo, Japan, b. 1970

Jonathan Meese was born in Tokyo in 1970 and lives and works between Hamburg and Berlin. 

He studied at the Hamburg Academy of Art but did not complete his degree.

He works across a wide range of media, including performance, installation, painting, sculpture, collage, drawing, and writing. His work addresses themes of power, desire, and identity, and he has developed a personal mythology—complete with its own stories and heroes—that blends historical, legendary, and science fiction references.

Meese first exhibited at the Frankfurter Kunstverein in a group exhibition, and his first solo exhibition took place at Galerie Buchholz in Cologne. Since then, his work has been shown in galleries and museums around the world, including Neuer Aachener Kunstverein Art Museum, Aachen; Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin; the Berlin Biennale; Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami; and the Essl Museum, Vienna.

Meese’s works are also included in collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Sammlung Goetz, Munich; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, among others.