Lars America
Jan
He // Him // His
[ID: A close up of a man’s face with olive skin. His gaze is cast to his right, pensive, as he looks out from clear colored glasses. His dark hair and beard stubble are well groomed. Although you cannot see the man’s body, you get glimpses of his grey t-shirt, and the tops of his crossed forearms.]
Los Angeles, CA
2022 USA Fellow
This award was generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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Lars America Jan is a director, artist, writer, and activist known for visually striking, genre-bending works exploring emerging technologies, live gatherings, and unclassifiable experience. Jan synthesizes eclectic materials and synchronizes diverse teams to incite thought about urgent social issues, such as climate change, surveillance, national borders, screen-based propaganda, and the nature of protest.
His original works — including Holoscenes, White Album, The Institute of Memory (TIMe), and Abacus — have been presented worldwide by BAM’s Next Wave Festival, the Whitney Museum, the Sundance film Festival, CAP UCLA, Nuit Blanche Toronto, the London’s Burning festival, and Istanbul Modern, among many other venues. Upcoming dates are at the Summer Nostos Festival in Athens and Festival TransAmériques in Montreal.
His climate change–themed installation, Holoscenes, created a sensation in Times Square, coinciding with the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords. Winner of the Audemars Piguet Art Commission, Jan exhibited Slow-Moving Luminaries, a kinetic pavilion evoking sea-level rise during Art Basel in Miami Beach. He is a TED Senior Fellow, Sundance Art of Practice Fellow, CTG Creative Collective member, and Creative Capital awardee. He is currently developing a mixed-reality performance tracing the Afghan side of his family forty thousand years into the past and making a series of photos of vehicles in which people in Los Angeles live. Jan is represented by Charlie James Gallery and is on faculty at CalArts.
Portrait photo by Kawai Mathews.
Installation view of HOLOSCENES, 2017. Co-presented by Times Square Arts and World Science Festival. Times Square, New York. Photo by Max Gordon.[ID: An aerial shot of a large crowd surrounding an outdoor stage filled with ladders and equipment. At the center is a tank filled with water in which a figure wearing a red garment floats.]
Production photo of Joan Didion’s The White Album, 2018. BAM Next Wave Festival. Photo courtesy of the artist.[ID: A photograph of a stage, mid-performance. The set is a long rectangular structure with many glass doors, lit from the inside to reveal furniture and a woman standing alone. In front of the windows, one person dances in silhouette while other figures lounge downstage.]