P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents the New York debut of Danish artist Jeppe Hein (b. 1974, Copenhagen, Denmark). Hein will present a new site-specific installation, Flying Cube (2004).
Flying Cube, a white cube floating in the center of the exhibition space, challenges gravity and activates the traditional gallery space. The floating cube responds to unique visitor interaction: although the audience plays the role of an active observer, the viewer's relationship to the physical space is called into question. Through design of furniture, leisure/work facilities and wall/space constructions, Hein interrupts and redefines the environment.
Jeppe Hein articulates a lively and often unexpected dialogue between his work, the viewer, and the site of intervention. While his sculptures refer to Minimalism and question the authoritarian nature of the museum or gallery exhibition space, his method necessitates that the audience physically trigger the work. His work is thus at odds with the phenomenological interpretations of Minimalism, in which the viewer interacts only abstractly with the work. Hein delights in apparently serendipitous events, suspends common sense laws of cause and effect, and conjures scenarios in which, responding to the viewer's presence, seemingly sentient behaviour is coaxed from inanimate objects.
Jeppe Hein has recently participated in exhibitions at the Shirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany; the 50th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; the Royal College of Art, London, U.K.; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; CAPC Musee d'art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France; Lenbachhaus Museumsplatz, Munich, Germany; the Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany; the Arhus Kunstmusuem, Arhus, Denmark; and the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany.
This exhibition is curated by P.S.1 Curator Jimena Blazquez.