Jan Albers
September 5 – October 25, 2025 | Van Horn, Düsseldorf
Jan Albers, stRawbeRRyReef, 2025
spray paint & polymer plaster on polystyrene & non-wood in acrylic glass box,
171 x 121 x 37 cm
Jan Albers describes his work as a kind of self-observation in action: “The great art is to experience yourself in the act of doing. The more varied the actions are, the more you learn about yourself.”
This attitude lies at the heart of his work. It is insight through action, artistic exploration without a fixed route, a continuous process of experience. Beauty, it seems, is not a goal for Albers, but a solution. Something that can arise from the work itself.
In this exhibition, strength meets softness, wildness meets sensitivity. As the exhibition title suggests, the work oscillates between opposites: ‘tender’ and ‘tantrum’ – delicacy and outburst. These are interwoven in a formal language that allows for both emotional depth and conceptual rigour.
What emerges is the expression of a dynamic, often contradictory process: a performative exploration of material, form and action. Albers’ relief works are performative settings, less objects than traces of an action. They are the expression of an intellectual and emotional, sometimes even spiritual process. It is not just about form, but about experience: erosion, friction, doubt, pain, happiness, curiosity. It takes courage to seek out the unfinished, to endure failure and inability, and even to use them as a springboard to the next level. The choice of materials is part of this search – open and sensual. What emerges remains open to interpretation: it is not uncommon for a work to only take shape or shift when viewed. It is not so much about realising a design, as about exploring a path.