Jan Lütjohann
Artist in residence, Stockholm, 22 November 2023 – 25 February 2024
Jan Lütjohann is a sculptor and educator from northern Germany who lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. He uses pre-industrial tools and obsolete technology to contemplate on working with hands in the present and future. His sculptures and installations are often made from wood and take the shape of tools, equipment and workspaces. In his workshops, participants use their bodies, hands and tools to reflect their agency in their material and immaterial environment.
Photo: Jesper Dolgov
Jan Lütjohann
At IASPIS Lütjohann will sculpt wood with people. Working entirely by hand enables him to work independently of electricity, take his tools anywhere and to connect with people and different forms of knowledge. He will continue a series of low-threshold workshops, which bring together participants from the fields of visual art, craft, education, and others. He will carry out field research into sculptural and technological potentials of historical and contemporary tools, equipment and workspaces in the region.
Jan Lütjohann has studied art education, sculpture and languages in Kiel/Germany, Hangzhou/China and Helsinki/Finland, and holds a Master of Education from Kiel University and Muthesius Kunsthochschule. For almost a decade he has been holding courses, seminars, and lectures at art academies in Finland and abroad. His recent solo exhibitions include “Centers of Gravity” at Galleri Box in Gothenburg in 2022, “Things that Contain” at Muu Kaapeli and Kulttuurisauna in Helsinki in 2021, and “Time and Other Resources” at Galleria Sculptor in Helsinki in 2019. Group exhibitions include “Shared Space” at HAM Helsinki Art Museum in 2023, “Pinefulness” at Tallinn Art Hall in 2021, and “Projektrum Augsburg” in Stockholm 2022. In recent years Lütjohann has been artist in residence in Taiwan, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and France, and presented his artistic work in different interdisciplinary research contexts. This autumn he finalized a public artwork commissioned by HAM Helsinki Art Museum and the City of Helsinki.