Collection

Hunting for Pheasants is a series of illustrations by Christian Tomaszewski (today known as C.T. Jasper) depicting assassinated public figures, such as Indira Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Grigori Rasputin, and Leon Trotsky. Nonetheless, these works are no eulogy. The artist is concerned with how events resulting in grave political consequences influence the collective imagination. Reality blends in with fiction, characters from Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers appear among historical figures, names of French actors emerge from beneath a snapshot of Indira Gandhi. The styling variation chosen for the Rasputin rendition, on the other hand, emulates tabloid aesthetics, echoes of constructivist avant-garde resounding within. Here Tomaszewski analyses the process of media shaping and forming collective remembrance.

Creator of illustrations, installations, videos and objects. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań and the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York. He has used the artistic alias “C.T. Jasper” since 2013. He is interested in the role of the language of cinematography, avant-garde art, and utopias of modernity forming the collective imagination. He often dons the hat of an anthropologist to research issues of post-colonial history. Some of his projects have been created jointly with Joanna Malinowska, and they represented Poland as a duo at the 56^th Venice Art Biennale in 2015. He lives and works in New York.