29 Nov 2009

I Object - Henrik Plenge Jakobsen at Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris

Henrik Plenge Jakobsen is a Danish conceptual artist, who works in a variety of media, from sculpture and installation art to performance art and public intervention.

Plenge Jakobsens project is socio-critical in the sense that he examines and discusses political, economical, cultural and social structures forming the foundation of modern life. Like the Situationists, he is interested in finding a meaningful art form capable of defining a place in the public space, while directly making use of everyday institutions. His project does not seek to cannibalize reality but to incorporate reality into the work itself. His work is radical exactly because it insists on the work’s real presence rather than interrogating the foundation of reality. For Plenge Jakobsen, art and reality are not separate spheres that can be temporarily forced together. Existing in the world, art represents one of the realities that constitute life. Henrik Plenge Jakobsens work can be described as a configuration of visual elements in spatial arrangements, often involving an additional element of action or performance. Many of his works combine sculptural elements and objects in a plastic display positioned between sculpture and installation. Differing from the theatrical and systemic, “total” form of classic installation art.

For his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen chose to assemble under the title "I OBJECT" a set of sculptures and gouache on paper referring to a series of forms known and determined by Rights according to some scientific organizations : the solar system, technology armaments, the Endless Column by Constantin Brancusi.

By using imagery such as separate areas of the metaphysics, technology or science, the artist attempts illustrate the possible convergence of "design" to them subject through the prism of a spatio-temporal break.

"Ares" and "Test Probe"  whose forms are inspired by the future NASA program for the Defense, strangely resume design very similar to that used in years 50 and 60. Sculptures "Organization" and "UR" are replicas prepared by computer works by Constantin Brancusi.

Henrik Plenge Jakobsen's (born 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark) works has been exhibited (selection) at: 2009 /N’importe quoi (Solo), Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon; 2009 /The Wealth of Nations (Group), Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris; 2008 /Château de Tokyo, Palais de Fontainebleau (Group), Fontainebleau; 2007 /Manhattan Engineering District (Solo), FRAC Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; 2006 /Sudden Impact (Group), Le Plateau, FRAC Ile de France, Paris; 2005 /Circus Pentium (Solo), National Gallery of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, DK; 2003 /Hardcore (Group), Palais de Tokyo, Paris