Brian Jungen

For more than two decades, Brian Jungen has been lauded for his ability to transform everyday commercial products into a range of museological objects. His sculptures and installations imitate forms as large as the skeleton of a whale composed of plastic chairs, as well as Indigenous ceremonial objects such as masks produced from dissected and reconfigured Nike Air Jordan trainers. These works and decoy strategies address the issues of dispossession and appropriation latent in the aesthetics of contemporary global economic, political, and cultural conflict.

Biography

Born in Fort St. John, Brian Jungen is an artist of Dane-zaa and Swiss ancestry who now lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1992, he obtained a Diploma of Visual Art from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design. Jungen has presented significant solo exhibitions at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2021); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2019, 2011); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2017); Kunstverein Hannover, Germany (2013); Bonner Kunstverein, Germany (2013); National Museum of the American Indian, Washington (2009); Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2007); Tate Modern, London (2006); Vancouver Art Gallery (2006); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2006); and New Museum, New York (2005). Jungen’s work has been included in recent group exhibitions at the Toronto Biennial of Art (2022); FOR-SITE Foundation, San Francisco (2021); Copenhagen Contemporary, (2021); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2018); Liverpool Biennial (2018); Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe (2017); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2017, 2013); De Paul Art Museum, Chicago (2016); Vancouver Art Gallery (2016); and the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012). His large-scale bronze sculpture, Couch Monster: Sadzěʔ yaaghęhch’ill (2022), is the first-ever public art commission by the Art Gallery of Ontario. In 2002, he won the inaugural Sobey Art Award and the Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 2010.

Recent exhibitions

2022	Movement: Expressive Bodies in Art, group exhibition, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, CA What Water Knows, The Land Remembers, group exhibition, Toronto Biennial of Art, Toronto, CA
2021	Hammer Contemporary Collection: Brian Jungen, solo exhibition, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA Drawings, solo exhibition, Casey Kaplan, New York, USA
2020	Larger Than Memory: Contemporary Art from Indigenous North America, group exhibition, Heard Museum, Phoenix, USA
2019	Friendship Centre, Art Gallery of Ontario, solo exhibition, Toronto, CA