JAKOB
FRIIS "BLINDS" (2006)
Installation: Aluminium window blinds, 4000W Kunstlicht, blue folio, transparent paper, tape, dead plants.
The
exhibition "Blinds" consist of two window blinds mounted on two double windows
on the outside of a facade wall in the street level apartment in Berlin,
Mitte. Inside the room located behind the windows, 4000 Watts of light create
an image of a sunfilled window at night. An immediate interpretation could
be that we are at home “in the city of Berlin”
and looking out into the illusion of the sunlight coming from the room. An
illusion that everyone are interested to look “inside” of to see what
is behind the shaded windows. As viewer one can choose to open
for the light or close the blinds by simply turning the mechanism. We can then
choose if we will experience the light coming form the room or not. This immediate
and ancient philosophical rooted experience is here connected to context
of art but not within a coded setting as a gallery or museum. The installation
questions as such as where we are to experience art and if art is tangible?
Can art as experience be purchased? The installation plays with the theme of
"enlightenment/blinding" via the title. A further interpretation could
be that instead of experiencing the context of art inside the white
cube of the room, we can experience it simply by movement within the spheres
of the city. Having turned the art-context inside out, one is left with the
puzzle circling around the question of art: reflections or "sudden
light" of inspiration from the art of the world as a whole.
Jakob Friis (Denmark, 1973) works with video, light, installation, sculpture, architecture. His pieces manipulate form and traits of objects drawing attention to the relative instability of physical form.Key notions in his work is disorientation and ambiguity with which he tries to confound expectations and perception. Friis has previously worked as assistant to the artist Mads Gamdrup (DK) and latest for the artist Robert Wilson (US). He has exhibited in Copenhagen, Sweden and Berlin. Recently at the Königstadt Brauerei curated by Cardiff, Horn and Wilson. Jakob Friis lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen.
