Jens Liebchen

The viewer’s first impression is one of an unspoilt natural environment, but the attentive eye will decipher the image a little at a time. In the background, shapes of cars and the urban landscape are barely discernible through the blizzard. The light washes out the colours and accentuates the silhouette of the trees, transforming them into actors on a black-and-white stage, as though the whole landscape were a theatre set in the middle of Tokyo. Imbued with delicacy and order, the photographs point directly to Japanese pictorial tradition.

Jens Liebchen studied social anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin before devoting himself to photography. The two disciplines remain closely connected in his work as his concerns as an artist reflect his interest in political and social questions. The series presented at the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire is the fruit of his time in the Japanese capital from 2010 à 2013. Created with meticulous aesthetic qualities, System is also a reflection of Japanese society and culture. 

For Jens Liebchen, the trees are paradigms illustrating the destiny of Japan’s children. Gardeners “control the location of the trees and regulate the growth of the trunks, branches and leaves. Little, if anything, is left to nature. The trees are cut, curved, shaped, twisted, turned and redirected to achieve what is considered a perfect shape. In other words, they are the reflection of a system designed to produce individuals who meet society’s requirements”, explains the artist.

Liebchen photographed the trees in the Imperial Palace Garden during a snowstorm. Like in a series of paintings, each image in System frames the horizon at the same level, regardless of the chosen layout, and the trees emerge as mirrors of a carefully conditioned Japanese society and the artistic process of producing photographs in series.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Born in Bonn in 1970, Jens Liebchen moved to in Berlin in the early 1990s, where he lives today. He studied social anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin before devoting himself to photography in 1995. His time in Japan from 2010 to 2013 had a lasting influence on his work. The Politics & Art - Art & Politics exhibition received critical acclaim and toured internationally, organised by the Goethe-Institut, while his L.A. Crossing series featured at the Helmut Newton Foundation Museum in 2022. Liebchen has held multiple workshops for the Goethe-Institut and presented his work during public lectures. His works are included in national and international collections such as those of the German parliament, the Kunstsammlung DZ Bank in Frankfurt, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. He has exhibited in many international solo and group exhibitions.

Jens Liebchen is represented by Gallery Springer, Berlin.