How Jack Kabangu used instinct and Instagram to become Denmark’s next It artist

While many people passed the time during pandemic by painting, few have a thriving art career to show for it. Jack Kabangu does. Somewhere amidst the boredom of lockdown, Kabangu, 28, who had been casually painting for some years, began putting paint to canvas in his Copenhagen apartment just “for fun”. Later, with the encouragement of his girlfriend, he posted images of the works to Instagram. The response was emphatic and immediate. “After that, a lot of people were asking about prices,” says Kabangu when I reach him at his home in Copenhagen. He’s casually dressed in a worn out Washington football T-shirt (which team? He isn’t sure) he picked up at a vintage store in LA. “I just began posting a lot on Instagram, and that’s how it went down.” Three months later, Kabangu was a full-time artist and in quick succession he exhibited at Over the Influence in Hong Kong, NBB in Berlin and Maddox Gallery in London. Up next, Kabangu will be showing with Larsen Warner at Stockholm’s Market Art Fair.

Born in Zambia, Kabangu, who moved with his family to Holstebro when he was 10, didn’t have a particularly artistic upbringing (his dad was a doctor, his mom worked in childcare). Already drawn to the pop culture of the west (rap music, films), the only thing truly shocking about the move to Denmark was the weather. Three years ago he relocated to Copenhagen, but he keeps his main studio in Holsterbro, sequestering there for weeks at a time when he’s gearing up for an exhibition.

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Prior to becoming an artist himself, Kabangu “didn’t know much about art in general”. Instead he found his muse in rap. “My biggest inspiration since I was a little baby was Lil Wayne,” he says. “He was quite special in the way he expressed himself. He was a mix of an artist and a rapper, a pop star – a mix of everything.” Through Wayne, Kabangu discovered Ye (then Kanye West) and Tyler the Creator. There was one visual artist they all tended to mention: Basquiat.

It’s unsurprising that Jean-Michel Basquiat would resonate with Kabangu. There are, of course, the visual parallels in their work – the gestural, instinctual paint strokes. The graffiti-like approach. The exploration of their own identity, as Black men. But it isn’t just aesthetics that drew Kabangu to the American icon. “Before knowing his work, I knew a lot about him as a person and the way he used to work,” says Kabangu. “The way he used to network with artists and galleries and his relationship with Andy Warhol. The way he was branding himself – nobody was doing that in the same way he was. That was a big inspiration to the way I approach things.” While Basquiat networked and developed his own mystique at Max’s Kansas City, Warhol’s Factory and various art openings (his own, eventually), Kabangu fosters his own art world persona on Instagram. “Somehow he was like my teacher – he welcomed me into this world,” says Kabangu.

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So what is it about Kabangu’s work that made him Denmark’s next art world darling practically overnight? “Sometimes an artist's work will enter your orbit and it will be impossible to shake, that is what happened with Jack,” says Darren Warner, director of gallery Larsen Warner. “Jack has a very singular vision and his paintings have a power and energy which we found impossible not to be drawn to.” Having discovered Kabangu in 2022, Warner approached the artist to show with the gallery (alongside other emerging star Joakim Ojanen) at Market Art Fair in May. It marks the first time Kabangu’s work will be exhibited in Stockholm.

For Warner, it isn’t simply the “immediate visual impact” of Kabangu’s work that left an impression, it was also the references to Kabangu’s own history – the move from Zambia to Denmark, the inclusion of his personal influences – that make his work so intriguing. “And then to find out that he was completely self-taught was really quite extraordinary,” Warner adds.

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The role of Instagram in Kabangu’s success cannot be overstated. In fact, he’s quick to state it himself. “Instagram is one of the greatest innovations, if you ask me,” he says. “It’s the main thing that’s helped me to build my career as an artist. I’ve used it to connect with people, to show my art – everything is possible on Instagram.” As Warner describes it, Kabangu’s instagram allows viewers a peek “behind the curtain” – a portal into his studio, what he’s reading, what music he’s listening too (rap, mostly). "He is a young artist of the 21st century who fully embraced this technology to develop and nurture a relationship with audiences,” Warner says.

Would Kabangu’s hero, Basquiat, be on Instagram if he were working today? “Yeah,” he says. “I feel like if Basquiat and Warhol were living in our society today, they would be.”