JANTSANKHOROL ERDENEBAYAR was born into a family of artists and grew up during a chaotic period of democratic transition. Surrounded by the paintings of his parents as a child, he constantly wondered at their meaning and was always curious about the hidden messages within the elements of their artworks. Later on, as a young man in search of his own identity in a rapidly changing society, Jantsa decided to become an artist, and at the age of 19 he pursued his decision by going to study art in Hunter College, New York.
After completing his Bachelor’s Degree, Jantsa returned to his home country in 2015 and held his first solo show Hybrid Resistance at the Zanabazar Fine Arts Museum of Mongolia.
The exhibition was met with great success and immediately led to his recognition within the art community of Mongolia. In 2017, he returned to the United States to attend the MFA program at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA, which he has recently completed.
Greatly aware of his roots, Jantsa has always been intrigued by Mongolian tales, riddles, and proverbs and the intellectual communicative mindsets that have been constructed by his predecessors. As an artist, he investigates the transformations of socially constructed taboos, rituals, superstitions and habits, and creates dialogue between the past and present.
He puts himself into the environments where given meanings shift and questions the essence of different transformations. His works deal with the resistance of various forms, such as the concept of reincarnation during different states of being. Jantsa believes that everything is in a state of potential transformation, but there is always resistance in growth and survival.
The materials used in his works and how they change is an important factor in his art both conceptually and visually. The wood used in Jantsa’s works possesses several reincarnated forms, such as plastic, cardboard, plywood, sawdust and papier-mâché, which alludes to the idea of shifting shapes and the presence of things. Polyurethane foam suggests impermanence and time that is relative to everything as it passes. His sculpture Empty Man, which utilizes polyurethane, questions the human existence within our society, yet at the same time, it is so simple and otherworldly. He says, “Our consciousness takes over whatever body was given to us. Polyurethane foam, here and gone quickly, also implies our own ephemerality. Working with this material gives me a meditative feeling during the present, especially when observing gravity pulling the wet foam figures to the center of the earth in a similar succession of ephemerality.” The fact that he is attracted to waste or retrieved materials may be reminiscent of the arte povera movement, but the ideas and issues that he addresses are almost timeless and very much tied to the contemporary life, as previously encoded understandings change and become more of the hybrid versions of the originals.
For his international art debut, Jantsa was invited to present Mongolia by the curator of the Pavilion, who commissioned him to create sculptural installations to complement the sound component of the exhibition. His sculptural pieces made of hybrid, plastic and raw construction materials are created specifically for the Mongolia Pavilion A Temporality. By juxtaposing contemporary works with the spirit of the old venetian house, the sculptural installations of Jantsa will offer viewers moments of fleeting forgetfulness and reminiscence, where artists can interact with the space and objects, and perform by emitting abstract sounds using traditional throat singing techniques and electronic music.