This summer Kunsthal Charlottenborg presents the internationally renowned Danish artist Jesper Just with the one workexhibition Servitudes, an immersive architectural installation with eight synchronised nine-minute films on a loop. Servitudes investigates how we comprehend agency as well as the conventional understanding of ‘able’ or ‘disabled’.

The films revolve around three characters: a woman, who embodies the media-created ideal of youth and female beauty, and who seems incapable of acting upon her desires; a child afflicted by a neurological disorder that affects the motor and sensory nerves, who overcomes her disability by playing the notes of Chopin’s Opus 17 that guide the visitor throughout the whole installation; and the third character, the mediator between the two humans, namely the iconic One World Trade Center in New York, a prosthesis of the city and a phantom limb occupying the void left by the traumatic loss of the Twin Towers. The three protagonists of the piece appear as hybrids of machines and organisms, and their existence blurs the boundaries between fiction and experience.

Servitudes invites you on a journey into an architecture of scaffoldings like the temporary structures made for wheelchair users. By integrating it with the existing architecture, Just distorts our perception of the space, creating situations in which you need to bend to proceed. The visitor becomes a performer in the space, adjusting an ‘able’ body to respond to unexpected obstacles in the installation, and, thus, testing ideas of agency of the body that often recur in society.

First premiered at Palais de Tokyo in 2015, Servitudes has also been shown at the screens on Times Square in New York and is now part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The exhibition is initiated in collaboration with MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture & Technology in Lisbon and curated by Irene Campolmi.

Servitudes is supported by the Augustinus Foundation, Aage & Johanne Louis-Hansen’s Foundation, Beckett Foundation, Danish Arts Foundation, Knud Højgaard’s Foundation, Konsul George Jorck & Hustru Emma Jorck’s Foundation, New Carlsberg Foundation, Obel Family Foundation and sponsored by Dansk Stillads Service, Kvadrat, Galerie Perrotin, Flügger Farver Store Kongensgade, Statens Værksteder for Kunst and Galleri Nicolai Wallner.

Servitudes is produced by Anna Lena Films
Architecture Consultancy Servitudes: Lisbet Fritze
Architect: Katre Laura
Jesper Just Studio: Kristine Bech Sørensen
Special thanks to FOS and Dree Hemingway

Jesper Just
Jesper Just (b. 1974) is a Danish artist, who lives and works in New York. Over the past ten years, he has received international recognition for the rigorous precision and the insightful and emotional charge of his short films, exploring and deconstructing conventional representations of gender, love, social roles and body. He represented Denmark in the 55th Venice Biennale (2013) and has been exhibited internationally, more recently at Palais de Tokyo (2015), Performa (2015), the Royal Theatre of Copenhagen (2017) with the live performance Interpassivities, Museo Anahuacalli in Mexico City (2017) and MAAT – Museum of Art Architecture and Technology in Lisbon (2019). He attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Visual Arts, in 1997–2003.

Hashtags for social media: #servitudes #jesperjust

Denne sommer præsenterer Kunsthal Charlottenborg den internationalt anerkendte danske kunstner Jesper Justs totalinstallation Servitudes; et spektakulært arkitektonisk værk med i alt otte film på hver ni minutters længde, der vises i loop. Servitudes sætter fokus på vores konventionelle forståelse af bevægefrihed og handlekraft.

Installationens film kredser om tre karakterer: En kvinde, der personificerer de medieskabte ungdoms- og skønhedsidealer, men som synes handlingslammet. Et barn med en neurologisk lidelse i det motoriske og sensoriske nervesystem, som overkommer sit handicap og spiller tonerne af Chopins Opus 17 – den samme melodi, der guider besøgeren gennem hele installationen. Og den tredje karakter, samlingspunktet mellem de to mennesker, det ikoniske One World Trade Center i New York, som Just betragter som en protese i byrummet, en arkitektonisk fantomlegemsdel, der udfylder tomrummet efter det traumatiske tab af tvillingetårnene. Værkets tre fortællere fremstår som hybrider mellem menneske og maskine, der er med til at udviske grænserne mellem fiktion og erfaret virkelighed.

Just inviterer den besøgende på en rejse ind i en arkitektur af stilladser identiske med interimistiske konstruktioner til kørestolsbrugere. Ved at integrere denne opbygning med kunsthallens eksisterende arkitektur skubber Just til vores opfattelse af rummet og skaber situationer, hvor man må bukke sig for at fortsætte. Dette greb tvinger den besøgendes krop til at reagere på uventede forhindringer i installationen for derved at udfordre gængse forestillinger om kroppens fri bevægelse.

Servitudes, der nu er del af samlingen på Metropolitan Museum of Art i New York, havde verdenspremiere på Palais de Tokyo i 2015 og er også blevet vist på skærme på Times Square i New York. Udstillingen er skabt i samarbejde med MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture & Technology i Lissabon og er kurateret af Irene Campolmi.

Udstillingen er støttet af Augustinus Fonden, Aage & Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond, Beckett-Fonden, Statens Kunstfond, Knud Højgaards Fond, Konsul George Jorck & Hustru Emma Jorcks Fond, Ny Carlsberg Fondet, Det Obelske Familiefond samt sponsoreret af Dansk Stillads Service, Kvadrat, Galerie Perrotin, Flügger Farver Store Kongensgade, Statens Værksteder for Kunst og Galleri Nicolai Wallner.

Servitudes er produceret af Anna Lena Films
Arkitekt: Katre Laura
Arkitekt konsulent: Lisbet Fritze
Jesper Just Studio: Kristine Bech Sørensen
En særlig tak til FOS og Dree Hemingway

Jesper Just
Jesper Just (f. 1974), dansk kunstner, bor og arbejder i New York. I løbet af de sidste ti år har han modtaget international anerkendelse for sine kortfilm, der med stor teknisk præcision og skønhed fortæller historier om menneskelige relationer og følelser. Jesper Just repræsenterede i 2013 Danmark ved Venedig Biennalen og har udstillet på gallerier og museer verden over, senest på Palais de Tokyo (2015), Performa (2015), Det Kongelige Teater (2017) med performanceværket Interpassivities, Museo Anahuacalli i Mexico City (2017) og MAAT – Museum of Art Architecture and Technology i Lissabon (2019). Han studerede på Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademis Skole for Billedkunst i 1997–2003..

Hashtag til sociale medier: #servitudes #jesperjust