Issue # 40 Astrid Jahnsen
In 2017, Astrid Jahnsen (b. 1972) acquired in her hometown of Lima, Peru, a set of 82 handmade erotic zines dating from the 1950s to 1990s that combine pornographic photographs with texts.
They form the starting point of Jahnsen's artistic exploration in the project ON YOUR KNEES, for which she made highly subtle close-ups of the explicit visual material. With the help of the camera perspective she has adopted, Jahnsen thwarts the male gaze that once sexualized and objectified women in the image. Instead, she concentrates on the women's gazes, on moments of touch or snatches of sentences in the adjacent texts, and develops a new narrative. Through this expansive installation, this latest acquisition presents a current feminist approach in the context of the long tradition of Appropriation Art
Curated by Franziska kunze, for Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
Astrid Jahnsen
.Astrid Jahnsen (Born 1972, Lima, Peru), Is An Artist Working In The Field Of Photography. She Studied Communication Sciences At The University Of Lima. In Her Artistic Practice She Focuses On Traditional Image Discourses And The Importance Of Personal Perspective In Historical Narratives. In Her Photographic Projects Jahnsen Draws From Pre-Existing Materials Such As Old Books, Encyclopedias, Archives And Albums, Thereby, Reading Between The Lines To Discover The Ideologies Behind The Different Discourses.
Jahnsen Grew Up In Lima. She Spent Summers And Weekends With Her Grandmother, Who Had A Small Library With Many Family Albums. Her Great-Grandfather Was An English Engineer Who Came To Peru To Build The Railways And Who Was An Amateur Photographer. This Early Connection With The Past Led To A Fascination For Photographs And Old Books.