20.09.–26.10.2003

"Don't you hear the horses stamping in the circus?"
(Sigmund Freud: Emmy von N., in J. Breuer & S. Freud, Studies on Hysteria, 1895)

Henrik Plenge Jakobsen installs a circus using a number of stereotype props, such as an elephant drum, a trapeze, make-up mirrors, spotlights, and various costumes. A small-scale circus tent also takes up part of the exhibition space. All these elements appear as signs, the typified model of a circus - as a place of illusion, metamorphoses, and spectacle, but also of marvellous shudders and spine-chilling frights.

Henrik Plenge Jakobsen's installations are often situated along the thin line between entertainment and horror scenarios, sensation and humour, seduction and repulsion. He uses the language and forms of pop culture, yet his works seem to express a direct critique of our entertainment society and event culture, virtual economies and social hierarchies. Be it the exact replica of a burnt-out kindergarten, the staging of a road accident in a public place, or a large tree hung with coloured light balls inscribed with word "Angst". Similar to horror films, Jakobsen's works play with suppressed fears while simultaneously allowing the viewer to fully enjoy the effects of these fears.

The Canadian artist Rodney Graham will give a concert at the opening.

Henrik Plenge Jakobsen (*1967) lives and works in Copenhagen.
Rodney Graham (*1949) lives and works in Vancouver.

The exhibition is supported by the Centre for Visual Arts, Denmark