COPENHAGEN.- Statens Museum for Kunst presents Collection of Prints and Drawings: Jakob S. Boeskov: Siggimund, on view through September 6, 2009.
Action between fiction and reality - Jakob S. Boeskov (born 1973) has made a name for himself on the international scene in recent years as one of the most original and controversial action artists of our time. Equipped with a false identity, he has broken into special hermetic milieus so as to gather unique insight and simultaneously extend the borders of artistic action. He did this in his project My Doomsday Weapon (2002-04) when he played the part of an arms dealer at a Chinese arms fair and displayed a fictive anti-riot weapon. Genuine arms dealers, intelligence services and journalists were intensely interested, and there were more than five million hits on the project’s web site, until the rather shocked artist revealed the truth that it was an art project.
In 2004, Boeskov and journalist Mads Brügger went undercover in America as arch-Republican supporters during the national election, and infiltrated and documented a number of neo-Conservative groups. The ironic turn-around was that reality unexpectedly intervened in the art project when several Danish politicians attacked it as being anti-American, when it was shown on Danish television as Danes for Bush.
Paranoia in the Welfare State - Jakob S. Boeskov’s approach in his exhibition at the Collection of Prints and Drawings is different in that it is classical and more complex, although the political aspect is very obvious. Here fiction and reality and both the political and personal aspects are interwoven. There are about 70 works which point in various directions. The many drawings and some video works depict a restless, rakish artistic life in which personal triumphs and defeats are transformed into satire and poetry. They are also catalysts of a revised picture of Scandinavia, which is far from what is probably the normal perception of Golden Age idyll, a high level of tolerance and cool design. Seen through Boeskov’s eyes, the modern age is characterised by the escalating forces of ideological confusion and violent turmoil. The works all investigate the no-man’s land between a cruel, globalised environment and a paranoid and hermetic welfare state. War, power and politics are central themes which are intricately entangled with erotic dream scenarios and sometimes relatively banal love motifs, which is a conscious and almost romantic ploy on the part of the artist, who seems to be making room for budding optimism in the enfolding darkness.
Drawings and Video - The exhibition consists of works from the Collection of Prints and Drawings as well as loans from other collections and presents a wide selection of Boeskov’s recent drawings, as well as some which are completely new. They are typified by the contrast between Boeskov’s skilled draughtsmanship and the confrontational and often brutal statements, either verbal or presented in detailed portrayals. The humour is wry and the drawings are presented so they are like a straight right to the chin, reminiscent of the no-nonsense, curt aesthetics of a cartoon strip or graffiti, which is the essence of their effectiveness. This practice is also employed in the more developed narratives of the video works.
There is no particular differentiation between art and entertainment, which accords with both the political and the personal aspects being clear and recognisable fixed points in his art. Boeskov works quite consciously in a grey area, where he lets himself be influenced from all quarters. You will find references to other artists and his own works, to philosophy, pop and kitsch. Edvard Munch and the Moomins are on an equal footing as suitable materials for the final artistic expression.
Publication: On the occasion of the exhibition, Statens Museum for Kunst has published a book which introduces Boeskov’s drawings and video work over the recent years. Jakob S. Boeskov. Siggimund. Introduction by Karsten Ohrt and main essay by Vibeke Bolt Knudsen. ISBN 978-87-92023-31-5. Price: 48 DKK, available in the Museum’s bookshop.
Since his debut in the middle of the 1990s with his comic strip Flax Letter, Boeskov has exhibited at many venues both at home and abroad, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Ileana Tounta Gallery in Athens, Frankfurter Kunstverein, ZKM in Karlsruhe, and The Thing in New York. Jakob S. Boeskov was born in Elsinore in 1973, and now lives and works in Copenhagen and New York.
The Revitalisation of the Collection of Prints and Drawings - This is the first of a new series of exhibitions designed to revitalise the artistic field which the Collection of Prints and Drawings represents. There will be biannual exhibitions with accompanying catalogues which will fulfil the ambitions of the Museum to do more to demonstrate the many facets of art on paper. Both the exhibitions and the catalogues will derive from the work of the Museum’s researchers and the rich collection of more than 240,000 drawings, graphic works and photographs which the Collection possesses. In other words, we will experience significant insights into 700 years of art, supplemented by important loans from both home and abroad.
