Jonas Staal
Jonas Staal (1981, Zwolle) is an artist and founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit (2012-ongoing), the educational platform New World Academy (co-founded with BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2013-16), and the campaign New Unions (2016-ongoing). He studied monumental art at the AKI academy in Enschede and the SMFA in Boston and received his PhD for his dissertation on Propaganda Art from Leiden University (2018). Staal’s work includes interventions in public space, exhibitions, theater plays, publications, and lectures, focusing on the relationship between art, democracy, and propaganda. He lives in Rotterdam.
Recent solo exhibitions include Art of the Stateless State (Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, 2015), New World Academy (BAK-Centraal Mu-seum, Utrecht, 2015) and After Europe (State of Concept, Athens, 2016). His projects have been exhibited widely, among others at the 7th Berlin Biennial (2012), the 31st São Paulo Biennale (2014), the Oslo Architecture Triennial (2016), and the Göthenburg Biennial (2017). Staal’s works are represented in the collections of, amongst others, the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; and the Migros Museum, Zürich.
Recent books include Nosso Lar, Brasília (Jap Sam Books, 2014) and Stateless Democracy (BAK, 2015). The artist is a regular contributor to e-flux journal and his writings further appeared in Art Papers, Parse Journal, de Groene Amsterdammer and NRC Handelsblad. Staal is a member of the Academy of Arts, part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
- Publications
- with Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, Democratism: An Introduction to Five Models of Civil Protest, 2009, 24 pp. (English)/(Japanese)
- editor, New World Academy Reader, 3: Leaderless Politics, with International Pirate Parties, Utrecht: BAK, 2013, 146 pp.
- Nosso Lar, Brasília, Jap Sam Books, 2014.
- editor, with Renée In der Maur, New World Academy Reader, 5: Stateless Democracy, Utrecht: BAK, 2015, 256 pp.
- "Assemblism", e-flux 80, Mar 2017.
- Propaganda Art from the 20th to the 21st Century, Leiden: Leiden University, 2018, 425 pp. PhD dissertation.
- Links