Jeppe Hein

Illusion for a second

Jeppe Hein is the mastermind and leading force behind Karriere bar and, very appropriately, his artistic contribution is the bar counter itself. Twelve metres long and sitting at the heart of the space, the bar counter gently oscillates from side to side. Drinks and handbags are constantly sliding about a bit, causing slight bemusement: Hey! Have you just taken my drink? Or have I had a bit too much already? The element of surprise, as so often in Hein’s works, is the entry point to the piece. This can have a decidedly intoxicating effect on the ‘participant’, which leads to Hein’s works’ attenuating the normal distances between people, and between work and viewer. In Hein’s pieces, space, artwork and audience are closely connected. In this respect, his practice arguably represents an extension of developments in sculpture as well as site-specific and conceptual art from the 1960s onward. The same is true of his sculptural idiom. Jeppe Hein works with a wide range of materials and art forms: water, neon, fire, balls, cubes – and nothing at all. In the work Invisible Labyrinth (2005), you are invited to range around in a large empty museum space wearing a headband fitted with sensors. When it vibrates, it is an indication that you have collided with the walls of the maze, and a cue to change direction and find your way through the empty space while gradually forming an idea of its ‘layout’. The labyrinth reveals individual dispositions. There are those who follow the herd and there are those who follow their own path. And then there are those who simply quit the labyrinth because there is nothing there to see. These last are in the minority, however, since interacting with Hein’s works is fun. Jeppe Hein challenges the classic understanding of art as pure aesthetics, and not least the traditional distance between artwork and viewer, familiar to us from museums and tony galleries, is something he blasts away. By the same token in the public realm, his works are never allowed to constellate in passive clusters in a square. In one gallery exhibition, he had a large steel ball with sensors and a motor roll around the space – 360 Presence. The more numerous the visitors, the more uncontrollably the ball rolled about, ending up smashing into walls and electric sockets with visitors leaping from side to side. Only when all had left of the space did the ball slow down. The work is a crisp comment on the delusional control we believe ourselves to have over art and nature. But, back to the bar at Karriere… Here too things can get a bit lively, but, happily, to have our received ideas about art upended, it’s enough to move our feet in tandem with the bar. (PKE)

Jeppe Hein, born 1974, Denmark
www.jeppehein.net

• Illusion for a Second
• Escaping Visions

Escaping Visions
Year: 2003
Material: water, wood, iron grating, jets, electrical pumps, sensors
Dimensions: basement 10 × 10 m, height: 2,30 m
Courtesy: Johann König, Berlin and 303 Gallery, New York

Escaping Visions

Escaping Visions is a water pavilion on a hexagonal outline with walls of water shooting up
from jets in the ground. Initially the pavilion looks inaccessible for the viewer. But when
moving close enough to one of the water walls, the visitor activates a sensor that opens this
section. After entry, the water starts flowing again, enclosing the viewer in a space
surrounded by walls of water.

Installed on an open, public place the work activates the space and invites the public to make
use of the work, either as a space for seclusion and relaxation or the opposite, a place of
pure joy and playfulness as well as a point of attraction for the city population.

In my conception of artworks, I want to explore the situation between the viewer, the artwork
and the surroundings, challenging the role of art in different environments and social
contexts, in the museum as well as the public space. While in museums, the relationship
between the viewer and the artwork is already defined to a strong degree, artworks in public
space open up new possibilities for the viewer to lose his timidity and respect towards art.
When people see an art piece developed and integrated in public space, it is often easier for
them to get a first access to it. Interaction is a distinctive element of my artwork and the
viewer plays a vital role. My installations offer the viewer the possibility of participation in the
action of a piece, or of being confronted with the surprise of the unexpected. Rather than
passive perception and theoretical reflection, the visitor’s direct and physical experiences are
more important to me.

For a couple of years now, I am working with natural elements such as water as a material to
create architectural constellations. I had positive experiences with water pavilions created for
public space, for example at the Venice Biennale (2003), at Villa Manin (2004), in Berlin
(2005), London (2006) and Rome (2007). These water pavilions are appreciated for the
physical experience and the active participation of the public they offer. For me, this “liquid
architecture” is a social sculpture inserted playfully in everyday life situations. The interaction
between viewer and artwork can stimulate multiple reactions: from amusement to fear,
curiosity to doubt, wonder to surprise. It is this “performative” aspect, which I consider to be a
central aspect in my artistic strategy and practice.