Jan Verbeek was born 1966 in Bonn, Germany. From 1987 to 1989 he studied Art History, Literature and Communication Research at Bonn University. From 1989 to 1996 he was student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf under Nan Hoover and Nam June Paik. In 1993 he became Meisterschüler / master grade student of Paik and worked as his assistant from 1994 to 1996. As a postgraduate he studied Audio-Visual Art at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, from 1996 to 1999.
Verbeek's video and installation work is based on a sensitive observation of reality. The audio-visual compositions are characterized by a delicate interaction of image and sound and the way how time and space work together.
Verbeek received international art prizes and showed his work in numerous festivals and museums, among them the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Museum Fridericianum Kassel, ZKM / Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Singapore Art Museum, Visual Museum Saitama Japan and the Museum of Modern Art New York.

A young parking garage attendant with hat and trench coat and long arms conducts the cars to the one or other exit. The precise operation appears like the choreography of a powerful dance. The character of images and the musical composition annihilate boundaries, outside world and inner world merge.

Tokyo, 11pm. People entering a train.
Shot in one take the video communicates the inevitable up to the edge of the unbearable.

'Meditation of a partial description of nature based upon video time.'

'Go on!' Buddha’s last words.
Without commentary, the video presents an everyday means of transportation in movement. The particular images and sounds and the polarizing editing make this technical, ceaselessly running object an increasingly associative metaphor; it acquires the character of a living creature, trapped in its system.

An accelerating journey across country dissolves into a shimmering sea of yellow flowers in full bloom. A two-minute crash course in poetry, with a surprise ending.

A window at night, lighted from within. The silhouette of a woman can be seen. She cleans the window, obsessively, and engrossed in herself.
The video ends with a quote from Albert Camus: 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.'

Twenty-seven seconds, thirty-three takes: a story.

A meadow. Two children are building a house. Light and noise is coming from the open sky. The children act like dancers. On their terrace they reach, unprotectedly and happy, the end of the world.

Through the eyes and reactions of a judge the video observes a tournament of young martial artists. The indications of the judge interfere with the transmission by the medium.

The installation Bright Future Ahead creates a dense and floating atmosphere. Aspects of life in a mega-city world like Tokyo can be seen, contrasts in Japanese civilization. People reveal themselves as parts within well-organized systems. Routine activities are condensed to ambiguous choreographies. If there will be a bright future, this question remains unanswered.