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1/9/2011

Jeppe Hein

Johann Konig, Berlin

Johann König, Berlin is pleased to announce the first extensive presentation of Jeppe Hein’s watercolour works and a new large mirror mobile.

The fourth solo exhibition by Danish artist Jeppe Hein at the gallery reveals an up to now only little known side of Hein’s artistic practice. While Hein has continuously been creating works on paper besides his sculptural pieces, he has mostly been working on watercolours in the past year. For the whole year of 2010 Hein withdrew himself from the art world in order to reduce the increased pace of his life and work.

The large ensemble of more than 900 framed pieces almost completely covers the walls of the exhibition space. The watercolours present the viewer with an impression of Hein’s personal relationship with his work as an artist and the art world. Within the strong colours and the light brush strokes well familiar motives from Hein’s oeuvre pop up in the monumental yet playful watercolour cosmos: circles, balls and cubes as well as abstract striped paintings, rainbows, socks, birds and elephants. His central interest of involving the viewer in the artwork initially becomes apparent in the nearly life sized ‘head studies’ whose frontal views seem like mirror images of the viewer. Many of the watercolour works connect to Hein’s text pieces, which up to now have been created in the medium of sculpture, mostly in neon. In the new watercolour texts Hein notes bits and pieces of random thoughts, experiences and impressions, which speak directly to the viewer. Their underlying subtle humour hints towards contemporary life styles and understandings of art: ”Hokuspokus I am in focus“,”Give me something back“,”Hope you see what I see“.

The watercolour’s reflection of and on art and audience finds its sculptural and performative counterpart in the reflections of the multi-pieced mirror mobile placed in the centre of the exhibition space. Through the slow rotation the viewers are confronted with briefly returning mirror images of themselves, the room and its architecture in multiple perspectives.

Jeppe Hein (*1974) lives and works in Berlin. Since studying at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen and Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main (1999) he has been part of numerous group exhibitions and has realized several works in public space. Among his most important solo exhibitions are 360˚ (2011) at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; 1xMuseum, 10xRooms, 11xWorks (2010) at Neues Museum Nürnberg; Sense City (2009) at AroS Museum of Art, Århus, Denmark. Besides extensive publications such as the catalogues of his solo exhibitions in Kanazawa and Århus, the monography Until Now (2007) was published at Koenig Books with texts by Francesco Bonami, Christine Macel and others. His works are parts of institutional collections such as the Tate Gallery, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/Main; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Opening reception: September 2, 2011, 6 – 9 pm

Johann Konig
Dessauer Straße 6-7 - Berlin

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