Jenna Bliss

In February 2024, Haus am Waldsee presents two parallel exhibitions by the American artist Jenna Bliss (*1984 New York) and the Scottish painter Carol Rhodes (*1959 Edinburgh; † 2018 Glasgow). The use of temporally or spatially distanced perspectives to reveal new angles on established narratives are characteristic of both artists’ work. By combining everyday observations, speculations, and meticulous research, the two exhibitions form a space in which fact and fiction meet and the larger bearing of structural human intervention becomes tangible.

Jenna Bliss explores the political dimensions inherent in our ways of seeing and telling stories. In her practice, she primarily uses film, photography, sculpture, and collage. Her works are characterized by detailed research into often overlooked and marginal topics that nevertheless reflect major global events. Bliss employs research and intuitive associations to sift through collective memory, questions common assumptions, and thus expands an accepted narrative. For her first institutional exhibition in Germany, she brings together two of her most recent projects, which form part of a larger series of works around the recent history of Wall Street and the far-reaching consequences of high-risk financial speculation. These first two bodies of work in the series concentrate on the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the financial crash of 2008. Both events are examined in constellations of works that illuminate their subjects through a mixture of fact and fiction, abstraction and detail, drawing a wide-eyed portrait that reveals larger patterns. Through the montage of self-filmed, found, and archival footage in the form of text and images, Bliss elicits inherent ideologies from the material and reveals historical links that are invisible at first glance.

Jenna Bliss (b. 1984 New York, USA) is an artist, filmmaker and video editor. She lives in New York, USA.

Exhibition booklet