Lundi 25 Avril 2016 11:55:46 par Annabelle Lafeuil dans Expositions

“We dream of traveling through the universe – but is not the universe within ourselves? The depths of our spirit are unknown to us – the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds – the past and future – is in ourselves or nowhere.” (Novalis, Philosophical Writings, p 25, Suny Press, 1997)
Gallery Taik Persons is pleased to present a selection of Adam Jeppesen’s œuvre from the series Flatlands Camp Project along with his most recent works in the solo exhibition entitled Vaca Muerta [Dead Cow].

Seven years ago, the artist embarked on a 487 days unaccompanied and relentless journey taking him through the Americas from the Arctic to Antarctica. The presented works are devoid of people, only showing vast, isolated and savage landscapes, completely uninhabited – sometimes the high altitude and the extreme concentration of salinity renders the territory uninhabitable. The title of the exhibition derives from Adam Jeppesen recollecting an incident during his travels: “Years ago at the end of my solitary journey I found myself in the middle of nowhere: miles of deserted earth and water. The sense of loneliness vanished and at the same time built up in me again when I came upon a carcass of a dead cow. It was perfectly preserved in a place where it shouldn’t have been, a hostile environment where every life is endangered by just being there. Throughout my entire journey, and it never mattered wherever I was, I never forgot the sight of this dead cow. A few years later I went back and it was still there.”

Adam Jeppesen, Incahuasi III, 2016, 131 x 164 cm, photo copy, needles, acid free paper, framed. © Adam Jeppesen. Courtesy of Gallery Taik Persons

Jeppesen’s journey has never ended; it continues through the postproduction of his pieces, in which every cut, every piece of paper and their union through the pins and the creases is no more and no less another step on the way:

Walk, gaze, breath, cut, place, tile and pin... all of these musical notes of the unusual and imperfect symphony that Adam Jeppesen’s oeuvre represent. His work touches several strands in form and content. When looking at the images more closely one will be drawn not only into a world of awe- inspiring landscapes but also a world of traces. Scratches, abrasions, and motes of dust on the images evoke in fact a story and its memories, the vivid proof of life, the lived journey. By accepting the aws, the artist tries to move away from perfection; something that the classical photographic techniques mainly aspire to accomplish. In terms of processing, he employs ephemeral materials such as photocopies, pins and rice paper among others as opposed to traditional photography. Henceforth, his practice is a metamorphosis from being a photographic image towards becoming a sculptural object. The tangibility that accompanies the use of these materials increases the three-dimensional perception of the pieces.

In his recent pieces Jeppesen extends his photographic practice by taking the complete process into the eld, where a unique photograph is created in situ. He exposes the image right on the photographic paper, requiring it to be developed within hours of exposure. Hence, protected by the darkness of the night, he develops the images right there in the beastly surroundings of the captured landscapes. The unique character of the works therefore evolves through this process and the information on the image being lost in parts, showing the imperfection and the ephemerality of the moment and of existence itself.

Adam Jeppesen was born in Kalunborg in 1978. He lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jeppesen graduated from Fatamorgana, Copenhagen, in 2004. Recent solo exhibitions include X at Galerie Van der Mieden in Bruxelles (2014), Scatter at Peter Lav Gallery, Copenhagen (2014) and group shows including Fotogra sk Center 20 Years – an anniversary exhibition, Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, 2016, The Return of the Real at Niels Borch Jensen Gallery, Berlin (2014). In July 2016, he has a solo show at C/O Berlin. His works are part of numerous public collections, among which are Denver Art Museum, The Danish Arts Foundation, The Swedish Arts Foundation, The National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, as well as a large number of private collections in Europe and abroad.