Tjorg Douglas Beer

Tjorg Douglas Beer (born 1973, lives in Berlin) steadfastly refuses to attribute any conceptual statement or stringency of form to his artistic techniques, but certain themes do occur again and again in his work. The images he creates often explore global issues such as war, politics and social structures. He produces different scenarios using elements arising from everyday absurdities, such as our media-saturated world, and explores these themes without giving them a moral tone. Beer used colour photocopies of etchings and photogravures as the basis for his limited-edition works for the Kunstverein. They depict the faces of figures in Central Services (2009), an installation that Beer developed for the Böttcherstrasse Art Prize in the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art in Bremen. Beer has collaged and painted over the pale, sickly looking faces of these almost adult-looking child mannequins to the extent that they are only just visible in the background. Fragments of headlines or slogans peek through the pieces of cut cardboard that share the space with the figures.

Tjorg Douglas Beer studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg. Between 1999 and 2004 he, Tatjana Sarah Greiner and Sebastian Zarius ran the Taubenstraße 13 gallery in Hamburg’s St Pauli district. He is currently working on the Forgotten Bar Project in Berlin.