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jake ziemann
image courtesy the artist, photo by ilona szwarc
Fueled by themes of intimacy, gender, and sexuality, Jake Ziemann's sculptures balance bodily shapes with everyday objects and industrial support. Through material dualities and formal gestures, his work blends notions of stability and vulnerability, the found and the handmade, and the abstract and the figurative.
The painterly ceramic forms in Ziemann's sculptures drip, slump, fold, lean, and fracture as they physically interact with their components, the connections between which allude to a longing for permanence and structure. Using materials suggestive of the artist's studio and construction, the work is rooted in the process of building, reflecting the labor involved in developing relationships with friends, lovers, and the world around him. Projecting a sense of prideful awkwardness, the sculptures act as both static, fetishized objects and stand-ins for emotive bodies, exuding individual or collective presences.
He has attended artist residencies at Anderson Ranch, Snowmass Village, CO (2021); Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT (2012); and the New York Studio Program, AICAD, Brooklyn, NY (2011). Ziemann's work has been included in numerous exhibitions including Chapter One: Home, Illya Haro Gallery, Tijuana, B.C., Mexico (2024); Filled Up, New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, New Harmony, IN (2022); Mnemonikos, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles, CA (2018); From the Ground Up, Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago, IL (2018); / Go, You Go, Good to Go, curated by Rirkrit Tiravanija & Gavin Brown Enterprises, Unclebrother, Hancock, NY (2017); Apollo On Earth, HILDE, Los Angeles, CA (2017); Set in Stone, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA (2016); Sexxxitecture, Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, San Francisco, CA (2015); Jake Ziemann: Selected Works on Paper & Small Scale Sculpture, SOME.TIME.SALON, San Francisco, CA (2015); Beauty, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, California (2012); among others.
His artwork has been featured and reviewed in art and culture publications, including Frieze, OUT Magazine, Foundwork, Carla, Forbes, Artslant, and KQED; among others.
Education
2012 MFA, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
2008 BFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2007 BA, Central College, Pella, IA
Residencies
2021 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Ceramics Resident, Snowmass, CO
2012 Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
2011 New York Studio Program, AICAD, Brooklyn, NY
Exhibitions
2024
Chapter One: Home, Illya Haro Gallery, Tijuana B.C., Mexico
2022
Filled Up, New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, New Harmony, IN
Cup Show, Space Ten Gallery, Hawthorne, CA
2019
Crosscurrent, "Alone," Alan Chin, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2018
Mnemonikos, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles, CA
From the Ground Up, Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago, IL
2017
Untitled Art Fair, Shulamit Nazarian (CA), Miami, FL
Set the Table, BBQLA, Los Angeles, CA
I Go, You Go, Good to Go, Unclebrother, Hancock, NY, curated by Rirkrit Tiravanija & Gavin Brown Enterprises (NY)
EXPAT, R/SF Projects, San Francisco, CA
Apollo On Earth, HILDE, Los Angeles, CA
2016
Set in Stone, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA
Bill Thelen & Jake Ziemann, Pig & Pony Gallery, Austin, Texas
2015
Art on Paper, SOME.TIME.SALON (CA), Miami, FL
Barry McGee, China Boo (side-show), Ratio 3, San Francisco, CA
Jake Ziemann: Selected Works on Paper and Small Scale Sculpture, SOME.TIME.SALON, San Francisco, CA
Sexxxictecture, CULT, Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, San Francisco, CA
<as they stood together>, Cameo Gallery, Portland, OR
Not Much to Look at, Royal Nonesuch Gallery, Oakland, CA
2014
All That and a Bag of Chips, Deadspace, Brooklyn, NY
stumble block, Tmoro Projects, Santa Clara, CA
2013
painting painting, ArtPadSF, Beta Pictoris Gallery (AL), San Francisco, CA
Tear It Out, Issues, Oakland, CA
Tear It Out, CCA Writer's Studio, San Francisco, CA
2012
Beauty, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
Pull, Tartine, San Francisco, CA
MFA Exhibition, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Too Much Rather, Kokoro Studio, San Francisco, CA
Drawing Realness, Will Brown, San Francisco, CA
John Baldessari: Class Assignments (Optional), CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA
2011
Orange You Glad?, Hooper 3 Complex, San Francisco, CA
When the West Was Won, Worth Ryder Gallery, Berkeley, CA
Perfect Place/No Place: Re-Imagining Utopia, Million Fishes Arts Collective, San Francisco, CA
Materiality: A Craft Exhibition, Laverne Krause Gallery, Portland, OR
Domesticity Un-hinged, Playspace Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010
ArtPadSF, Mark Wolfe Contemporary, San Francisco, CA
At Times I Think and At Times I Am, Playspace Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Winter Group Exhibition, Mark Wolfe Contemporary, San Francisco, CA
Jake Ziemann: New Work, farm:table, San Francisco, CA
Vices, D-Structure, San Francisco, CA
2009
Summer 2009 Exhibition, Easel Art Studio, Chicago, IL
2008
BFA Exhibition, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL
Art on Track, Orange line elevated train, Chicago, IL
2007
Dismantled, Mills Gallery, Pella, IA
Selected Works