Brian Jungen

Quick Facts

Full Name	Brian Jungen
Occupation	Artist
Date Of Birth	Apr 29, 1970(1970-04-29)
Age	54
Country	Canada
Birth City	Fort St. John
Horoscope	Aries

Brian Jungen Biography

Brian Jungen is one of the most popular and richest Artist who was born on April 29, 1970 in Fort St. John, Canada. From the initial Prototypes for New Understanding (displayed in Plexiglas vitrines) and on to contemporary art works (using freezing containers as plinths) and methods of display are at the heart of the conceptual and aesthetic success that Jungen’s art has achieved. The Canadian Indian Act of 1876 encompassed an Potlatch ban. The government implemented the restriction by seizing a lot of the cultural objects (masks blankets, blankets, and baskets etc.) ….) that were integral to Potlatches. The culture that was taken was later displayed in anthropology museums and anthropology. Jungen states: “a lot of my exposure to my ancestry is through museums”. Jungen recognized the importance of “display” to colonial ideology , and also the fact that museums of anthropology preserved as well as “mythologized” Indigenous culture as an attempt to sustain the dominance of colonialism. Being fully aware of the colonial motivations behind the anthropological display, it was a coincident when Jungen “went into Nike Town [where] they had sneakers of theirs in glass vitrines”. Jungen combined these two aspects of the museological with the work Prototypes for New Understanding by showing the Northwest Coast inspired masks made out of Nike Air Jordan sneakers “as if they were anthropological artifacts – on metal armatures inside plexi-glass vitrines” and thus engaging in the mythologizing impact that the vitrine has been able to have on sneakers as well as Indigenous cultural objects.

Jungen’s work is influenced by the traditions of found object art that was popularized by artists of the 20th century, such like Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp. Instead of showing things “as-is,” however, Jungen often transforms them, without completely concealing their origins or the reason for them. For instance, his collection Prototypes of New Understanding (1998-2005) is comprised of aboriginal masks made by hand and sewn from the parts made of Nike Air Jordan shoes. Jungen wrote: “It was interesting to see how by simply manipulating the Air Jordan shoes you could evoke specific cultural traditions whilst simultaneously amplifying the process of cultural corruption and assimilation. The Nike mask sculptures seemed to articulate a paradoxical relationship between a consumerist artefact and an ‘authentic’ native artefact.”

Animals have consistently appeared in Jungen’s work. Sometimes as a subject matter, as when he constructed a whale skeleton in Shapeshifter (2000); It is made of only plastic chairs, but it looks like a real sculpture! And sometimes as a material, both living and not; his use of various animal hides, and also using live animals as he did with cats in Habitat 04: Cite radieuse des chats/ Cats radiant city (2004). Habitat 04: Cite radieuse des chats/ Cats radiant city was a temporary habitat for homeless cats, which Jungen build to mimic the iconic Moshe Safdie designed building ‘Habitat’ in Montreal for Expo 67. Jungen’s “fascination with animals” often circles back to questions around the domestication of pets and the “environments built for animals” such as at aquariums or zoos. For his 2005 project Inside Today’s Home Jungen Reconfiguring materials purchased at IKEA to created an “indoor aviary for six domesticated zebra finches”. So as not to disturb the birds, viewers were only able to see them and the structures through peepholes in the gallery walls, thus exaggerating voyeuristic tendencies towards animals. Jungen’s interest in animals in captivity is a parallel between the voyeuristic way in which audiences look at captive animals and the way audiences look at Indigenous material culture.

Jungen again invoked museology in his sculpture Shapeshifter (2000) where he transformed plastic lawn chairs into the form of a whale skeleton and hung it as if it were a “display found in natural history museums or public aquarium”. The display of whales in museums and aquariums is like a “parallel to the situation of the First Nations individual who is both marginalized and fetishized” in settler society. Through their own methods of display, Jungen’s sculptures point to “the values that modes of display bestow upon an object”.

In 1997, Jungen took part in the group exhibition Buddy Place at the OR Gallery in Vancouver. Jungen’s contribution was a series of wall paintings that examined stereotyped depictions of Indigenous peoples and their cultures in BC. The wall paintings attempted to discover the concept of what “people thought native art [was]” through drawing from the streets and then transforming them into larger-scale wall paintings. In 1999, Jungen held a solo exhibition in the Charles H. Scott Gallery where he presented some more wall art and Prototypes for New Understanding (1998-2005). The exhibit “caught the eye of the nations art journalists, critics, academics and curators” and, as it was announced that the Vancouver Art Gallery purchased several sculptures by Jungen, his value and legitimacy was confirmed. In the Prototypes for New Understanding saw Jungen deconstructing Nike Air Jordan sneakers, and then reassembling them in forms that bear a striking resemblance Northwest coastline Indigenous masks. The art works poignantly made a contrast between western fantasies of material and the obsession with the ‘other’ within the settler community. Unfortunately, Brian Jungen’s parents passed away when were young.

Brian Jungen Net Worth

Brian Jungen is one of the richest Artist from Canada. According to our analysis, Wikipedia, Forbes & Business Insider, Brian Jungen 's net worth $5 Million. (Last Update: December 11, 2023)

Jungen’s father was an Swiss immigrants to Canada and also met his mother, a member of Dane-Zaa, a country located in British Columbia. They were married in the 1960s and, as a result the government revoked his mother’s “Indian status and treaty rights” which as per the government’s’ Indian Act, could only be determined by paternal ancestry. Born in 1970, Jungen had been “raised in the remote logging town of Fort St. John” and went to “public school where [he] developed an inclination towards visual art”. Unfortunately, his parents passed away in a fire , and the family was then taken over by his aunt. Jungen relocated to Vancouver to complete his post secondary education and graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design with the Diploma in Visual Art in 1992. After his post secondary education, Jungen studied the history of art at Concordia University in Montreal, before making the move in New York in 1993. He was a friend of the artist Nicole Eisenmann in New York before returning to Vancouver.

Brian Jungen (born April 29 1970 Fort St. John, British Columbia) is an artist with Dane-Zaa and Swiss heritage who lives and works in the North Okanagan of British Columbia. He works with a variety of three and two-dimensional material “Jungen is widely regarded as a leading member of a new generation of Vancouver artists”. Although Indigeneity and the politics of identity have been the primary focus the work of Jungen, Jungen has “a lot of other interests” and themes that are prevalent throughout his work. His work is aimed at addressing many peoples misperceptions about the notion that “native artists are not allowed to do work that is not about First Nations identity” by creating poetry-based works that defy categorizing.

Jungen’s work is in the National Gallery of Canada’s permanent collection of contemporary artists. Shapeshifter (2000) was acquired in 2001; Court (2004) was acquired in 2012; Star/Pointro (2011) was acquired in 2011; People’s Flag (2006)

Height, Weight & Body Measurements

Brian Jungen height Not available right now. Brian weight Not Known & body measurements will update soon.

Who is Brian Jungen Dating?

According to our records, Brian Jungen is possibily single & has not been previously engaged. As of December 1, 2023, Brian Jungen’s is not dating anyone.

Relationships Record : We have no records of past relationships for Brian Jungen. You may help us to build the dating records for Brian Jungen!

In 2004, he participated in A Grain of Dust A Drop of Water: The 5th Gwangju Biennale in Gwangju, Korea. An exhibition of Jungen’s work was held at the Vancouver Art Gallery (Canada) from January 28 to April 30, 2006. Later that year he also held an exhibition at the Tate Modern from May 20 to July 9,

2006. In 2008 he participated in the Sydney Biennale exhibiting his installation entitled Crux.

Facts & Trivia

Brian Ranked on the list of most popular Artist. Also ranked in the elit list of famous people born in Canada. Brian Jungen celebrates birthday on April 29 of every year.

Jungen is the first living Native American artist to exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, D.C. with his survey exhibition entitled “Strange Comfort” that was on view from October 16, 2009 to August 8, 2010. Jungen won the 2010 Iskowitz Prize for visual arts.

What is Brian Jungen known for?

John, BC). One of the most highly regarded Canadian artists of his generation; Brian Jungen has received international attention for his elaborate assemblages and installations that draw inspiration from his experience of post-industrial consumerism and his own First Nations heritage.

Where is Brian Jungen from?

Fort St. John, Canada

What does Brian Jungen use to create Art?

One of Canada’s pre-eminent contemporary artists, Jungen repurposes prosaic objects such as Air Jordan running shoes, golf bags, and car fenders wrapped in hides to create sculptures and installations that reflect his mixed heritage; his mother was Dane-Zaa from Doig River First Nation near Fort St.

What ethnicity is Brian Jungen?

Brian Jungen (born April 29, 1970 in Fort St. John, British Columbia) is an artist of Dane-zaa and Swiss ancestry living and working in the North Okanagan of British Columbia.

Is the group of seven indigenous?

The Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporation (PNIAI), informally known as the Indian Group of Seven, was a group of First Nations artists from Canada, with one from the United States. Founded in November 1973, they were Indigenous painters who exhibited in the larger art world.