Jessie Kleemann has been a significant figure in the world of contemporary art for three decades. Her work is formed of an original and expressive approach to video art, experimental theatre, feminism, the body and performance art. 

For most of her life, she has travelled back and forth between Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat), where she was born, and Denmark, where she lives and works today. Based on the complex relationships and exchanges between cultures, her practice explores the ways in which Greenlandic identity and tradition, the body, land and language, change over time. She is inspired by the artist Brian Catling, co-founder of the performance collective Wolf in the Winter, and the American artist Joan Jonas, a pioneer in performance and video art.

Jessie Kleemann also works with painting, graphics and poetry; in 2022 she was nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize for her poetry collection Arkhticós Dolorôs (2021). In 2022–23, she was appointed to Art Hub Copenhagen’s public communication programme Artistic Practice, which includes a live event where the artist meets an international curator of their choice. In this case, Jessie Kleemann met Tate Modern’s Director of Programming Catherine Wood, who has curated performance and other live art for the past twenty years.

In December 2023, Jessie Kleemann was invited to COP28 in Dubai, where she showed the video work Arkhticós Dolorôs and participated in a talk.

In March 2024 Jessie Kleemann received Danish Akademiraadets The Eckersberg Medal for her long lasting artistic practice.

Photo Credit: Christian Brems
Text contribution Art Hub Copenhagen