Panoptika

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	PANOPTIKA Panoptika is a series of cibachromes with installations in large box at the size of a room. The installations are made in the box for the sole purpose of photographing them, and they are never exhibited as physical objects, that has only happened in a few exceptionel cases. The boxes are held in a human scale, that is typically 2,2 x 3 x 2,5 metres For buying cibachromes or further information: Galerie MøllerWitt Vestergade xx 8000 Århus C tlf.: +45 86 18 29 49 www.gmw.dk
Hemmeligheden ved Tomhed og Fylde 1996, cibachrome 100 x 100 cm Monokromt landskab 1998, cibachrome 80 x 100 cm Modern Cave, 2004 lambaprint 80 x 100 cm Ekshibitionistisk Interiør 1997, cibachrome 100 x 80 cm	Excerpts from Panotika cathaloque text, 2001 (by Jesper Rasmussen): The proscenium theatre, the perspective box to look into (as Diderot named the living painting) was the basis for the naturalistic theatre before modernism. Like the theatre in modernism was freed from the surrounding stage box, the painting left the frame and the sculpture descended from the plinth. The fall of the frames were followed by the installation, a work category that fully acts up to the mantras of interactivity and breaking barriers proclaimed by modernism: Here the audience are not just passive spectators, but are moving about inside the work of art. The participation of the audience becomes more or less a part of the installation, the very reason to install. In this perspective one can rightly look on a contemporary use of the pre-modernistic proscenium theatre as a reactionary step backwards. The box instalation can only be looked at from from the outside, it operates with a rigid frontality like a classical relief, where no one can move behind and see the back of the figures and the objects, or at all interact bodily with the space. Then the question is, if one has to look at the box installation in this perspective, if there is no other view, which today is more constructive and usable? The very fact that one can not walk into the box actually do, that it is not possible to see everything, the content, the objects, which are installed in the box will hide each other, the backs remain obscure. In that way a tension arises between what one can see and what one believes must be hidden behind the objects inside the box. When the viewpoint is fixed there will be this possibility to draw a veil over the events, and to indicate the presence of unknown objects and obscure cavities. This possibility is not available in the normal installation , where the eyes of the spectators are inspecting all corners. In the box the informations are foldet between each other and shield themselves. There is a secret within the expression, that operates like the romantic covering, where the covering it self is more interesting, than the things that are covered. The box acts like a three-dimensional canvas, in which the objects easily can be installed and removed after the photographs have been taken. Naturally it is connected with a certain confined view, because when the camera with its automatical registration normally finds the objects in their autentic context in reality, then the objects here come to the camera as they are placed in the box. But in practice this framing gives a big freedom. With the box it is always possible to make the installation the very moment it is needed, when the artist think it is time. Like the painter who always decides on his own, when he wants to paint a painting. The box installation is not dependent on whether some museum or some gallery generously offers time and space to make it realize. The frame, the box, becomes a white cube itself (in my case more often a brown(!) cube), where these impenetrable but photogenic installations are buildt at the artists studio without any disturbances. These are installations, which on the whole are stripped of everything, that modernism have ordered and won of functionality and interactivity. On the other hand the installations recreates themselves as pictures, that has to be seen.
Fossil Sensation II 2001, cibachrome 60 x 90 cm Fossil Sensation III 2001, cibachrome 60 x 90 cm Hjemlig væg 2001, cibachrome 80 x 100 cm Langt kammer Penetration über Alles 2004, lambdaprint 100 x 200 cm	Excerpts from Off Location cathaloque text By Anna Krogh, curator: The Impossible Room The horizon of human cognition is inextricably tied to the body. We use our physical, corporeal experience to find our bearings in relation to the surrounding world, and with the body as our yardstick we have a generally valid parameter on the basis of which to decide proportions and relative sizes. It is in a comparison between human beings and the surrounding world that we derive a feeling of, for instance, the size of a building or a piece of sculpture. But what do we do when this horizon of experience is put out of play? When we are unable physically to find our bearings in relation to a two-dimensional reproduction of a room? For a considerable number of years Jesper Rasmussen has studied the concept of space on the basis of a formalistic optic. Not only as a modernistically defined project in which the elements of the image are examined on the basis of aesthetic, medium-determined considerations, but rather starting out from perceptual experiments with the viewer's gaze and physical experience of space. In his photographs, the artist usually constructs human-sized boxes in which he places everyday objects and geometrical elements. In other words he is producing a staged reality, and there is a paradoxical point to his choice of medium. It is a fundamental assumption that the two-dimensional photograph has a privileged relationship with three-dimensional reality. But Rasmussen's reality is constructed; the boxes that form the basis of the photographs exist, but the rooms that emerge seem staged and unreal. His photographic work immediately places itself primarily in the tradition of staged photography. And although there are hints of narratives in the references to everyday phenomena, his photographs also seem to wedge themselves into a formalist tradition such as that of the German photographer Thomas Demand. But Rasmussen also works with space problems in a way of which only few are capable. His photographic rooms tease the viewer and possess a sophistication that escapes any unambiguous reading. They are simply strange. Panoptica Characteristicially, Rasmussen calls his series of boxes Panoptika. He thereby draws a parallel between an architectonic structure (built up around a central control tower from which the whole building can be observed) and the artist's photographic eye, which has sole visual control of the space represented. But he does not work with a traditional photographic strategy in which we unquestioningly adopt his view of the world. On the contrary, we are confronted with the inadequacy of our gaze in that the angle and position of his camera are ambiguous and blur more than they clarify. In other words, our visually accustomed gaze lets us down here. Despite our acquired ability to decode the images with which we are bombarded every day, when confronted with Rasmussen's photographs we are without permanent, familiar fixed points. The proportions of the box are quite simply impossible to read and in several instances we are not even able to define what turns up and what turns down in the architectonic room. The photographs unfold between the flat room and the sculptural character of the forms and this constant interplay is confusing. Neither the power of the gaze nor the body's horizon of experience has an easy time in this visual room

PANOPTIKA

Panoptika is a series of cibachromes with installations in large box at the size of a room. The installations are made in the box for the sole purpose of photographing them, and they are never exhibited as physical objects, that has only happened in a few exceptionel cases.
The boxes are held in a human scale, that is typically 2,2 x 3 x 2,5 metres

For buying cibachromes or further information:

Galerie MøllerWitt
Vestergade xx
8000 Århus C
tlf.: +45 86 18 29 49
www.gmw.dk

Hemmeligheden ved Tomhed og Fylde
1996, cibachrome 100 x 100 cm

Monokromt landskab
1998, cibachrome 80 x 100 cm

Modern Cave, 2004
lambaprint 80 x 100 cm

Ekshibitionistisk Interiør
1997, cibachrome 100 x 80 cm

Excerpts from Panotika cathaloque text, 2001
(by Jesper Rasmussen):

The proscenium theatre, the perspective box to look into (as Diderot named the living painting) was the basis for the naturalistic theatre before modernism. Like the theatre in modernism was freed from the surrounding stage box, the painting left the frame and the sculpture descended from the plinth. The fall of the frames were followed by the installation, a work category that fully acts up to the mantras of interactivity and breaking barriers proclaimed by modernism: Here the audience are not just passive spectators, but are moving about inside the work of art. The participation of the audience becomes more or less a part of the installation, the very reason to install. In this perspective one can rightly look on a contemporary use of the pre-modernistic proscenium theatre as a reactionary step backwards. The box instalation can only be looked at from from the outside, it operates with a rigid frontality like a classical relief, where no one can move behind and see the back of the figures and the objects, or at all interact bodily with the space. Then the question is, if one has to look at the box installation in this perspective, if there is no other view, which today is more constructive and usable?
The very fact that one can not walk into the box actually do, that it is not possible to see everything, the content, the objects, which are installed in the box will hide each other, the backs remain obscure. In that way a tension arises between what one can see and what one believes must be hidden behind the objects inside the box. When the viewpoint is fixed there will be this possibility to draw a veil over the events, and to indicate the presence of unknown objects and obscure cavities. This possibility is not available in the normal installation , where the eyes of the spectators are inspecting all corners. In the box the informations are foldet between each other and shield themselves. There is a secret within the expression, that operates like the romantic covering, where the covering it self is more interesting, than the things that are covered.

The box acts like a three-dimensional canvas, in which the objects easily can be installed and removed after the photographs have been taken. Naturally it is connected with a certain confined view, because when the camera with its automatical registration normally finds the objects in their autentic context in reality, then the objects here come to the camera as they are placed in the box. But in practice this framing gives a big freedom. With the box it is always possible to make the installation the very moment it is needed, when the artist think it is time. Like the painter who always decides on his own, when he wants to paint a painting. The box installation is not dependent on whether some museum or some gallery generously offers time and space to make it realize. The frame, the box, becomes a white cube itself (in my case more often a brown(!) cube), where these impenetrable but photogenic installations are buildt at the artists studio without any disturbances. These are installations, which on the whole are stripped of everything, that modernism have ordered and won of functionality and interactivity. On the other hand the installations recreates themselves as pictures, that has to be seen.

Fossil Sensation II
2001, cibachrome 60 x 90 cm

Fossil Sensation III
2001, cibachrome 60 x 90 cm

Hjemlig væg
2001, cibachrome 80 x 100 cm

Langt kammer Penetration über Alles
2004, lambdaprint 100 x 200 cm

Excerpts from Off Location cathaloque text
By Anna Krogh, curator:

The Impossible Room

The horizon of human cognition is inextricably tied to the body. We use our physical, corporeal experience to find our bearings in relation to the surrounding world, and with the body as our yardstick we have a generally valid parameter on the basis of which to decide proportions and relative sizes. It is in a comparison between human beings and the surrounding world that we derive a feeling of, for instance, the size of a building or a piece of sculpture. But what do we do when this horizon of experience is put out of play? When we are unable physically to find our bearings in relation to a two-dimensional reproduction of a room? For a considerable number of years Jesper Rasmussen has studied the concept of space on the basis of a formalistic optic. Not only as a modernistically defined project in which the elements of the image are examined on the basis of aesthetic, medium-determined considerations, but rather starting out from perceptual experiments with the viewer's gaze and physical experience of space. In his photographs, the artist usually constructs human-sized boxes in which he places everyday objects and geometrical elements. In other words he is producing a staged reality, and there is a paradoxical point to his choice of medium. It is a fundamental assumption that the two-dimensional photograph has a privileged relationship with three-dimensional reality. But Rasmussen's reality is constructed; the boxes that form the basis of the photographs exist, but the rooms that emerge seem staged and unreal. His photographic work immediately places itself primarily in the tradition of staged photography. And although there are hints of narratives in the references to everyday phenomena, his photographs also seem to wedge themselves into a formalist tradition such as that of the German photographer Thomas Demand. But Rasmussen also works with space problems in a way of which only few are capable. His photographic rooms tease the viewer and possess a sophistication that escapes any unambiguous reading. They are simply strange.

Panoptica

Characteristicially, Rasmussen calls his series of boxes Panoptika. He thereby draws a parallel between an architectonic structure (built up around a central control tower from which the whole building can be observed) and the artist's photographic eye, which has sole visual control of the space represented. But he does not work with a traditional photographic strategy in which we unquestioningly adopt his view of the world. On the contrary, we are confronted with the inadequacy of our gaze in that the angle and position of his camera are ambiguous and blur more than they clarify. In other words, our visually accustomed gaze lets us down here. Despite our acquired ability to decode the images with which we are bombarded every day, when confronted with Rasmussen's photographs we are without permanent, familiar fixed points. The proportions of the box are quite simply impossible to read and in several instances we are not even able to define what turns up and what turns down in the architectonic room. The photographs unfold between the flat room and the sculptural character of the forms and this constant interplay is confusing. Neither the power of the gaze nor the body's horizon of experience has an easy time in this visual room