Jon Thompson

S|2 London presents a solo exhibition of works by British artist Jon Thompson in gallery one.

Jon Thompson was an esteemed critic, teacher and curator who masterminded the transformation of Goldsmiths College in the 1980s into a petri dish for the fermentation of the YBA group. Yet unbeknownst to many, Thompson was also an artist in his own right. The exhibition at S|2 will highlight Thompson’s artistic practice in large-scale photography and abstract painting, and its complex relationship with his deep and prolonged study of aesthetics and art history.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a major publication featuring previously unseen archival material, a newly commissioned essay by Michael Bracewell, as well as many of Thompson’s own writings. In both Thompson’s artwork and writing, language itself is called into question constantly. The book and exhibition invite the reader to dip into Thompson’s labyrinthine network of questions and investigations concerning the nature of art itself.

Jon Thompson’s major solo exhibitions include After the Merder, Picture the Corpse at the Anthony Reynolds Gallery, 1987; Jon Thompson at the Dhondt-Dhaenens Museum, Ghent; The Lyotard Suite at the Anthony Reynolds Gallery, 2014 and most recently a retrospective at the Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam. His work is collected by Arts Council England and The Tate Gallery in London, and he features internationally in many private collections.