Henrik Plenge Jakobsen was born in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he continues to live and work. Jakobsen uses a range of media, including performance, video and installation. His practice explores the capabilities and limitations of our spectacular culture. His works create fictional spaces where possible transgressions take on visible form, while acknowledging the impossibility for any real contravention to open up a gap beyond the system. His installations play with both entertainment and horror, at times physically engaging the viewer as with “Laughing Gas Chamber” (1996). Invested with angst and a spirit of civil disobedience, Jakobsen’s work questions the cliché of Nordic culture as an idyllic model of social harmony. For his project “Smashed parking ground” (1994), he positioned destroyed vehicles in a public square as a means of staging the remains of an imaginary riot. By blurring the distinction between the real and the fictional, Jakobsen’s works deliver an acerbic critique of society while making allowance for a highly enjoyable cathartic experience.
Recent exhibitions include''Defaced'', Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris (2014), ''Divorce'', The Great Poor Farm Experiment IV, Manawa, Wisconsin (2014), “I Object” at Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris (2009), “Kapital Melencholia” at Galleri ZK, Berlin (2009), “Organisation Faust” at The Suburban, Oak Park, Chicago (2009), “Nebelkammer, Autonomus Acts” at Glockengasse 22, Vienna (2008) and “Manhattan Engineering District” at FRAC Pays de la Loire, Carquefou (2007).
His work has been shown in numerous international exhibitions including Oslo Speculations, Academy of Fine Arts In Oslo, Norway (2010); “Interferance” at Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2010), “The Freak Show” at Musee d'Art Contemporain, Lyon (2007), “Populism” at CAC, Vilnius, Stedjeliik Museum, Amsterdam and Frankfuter Kunstverien, Frankfurt (2006), “Post Notes” at ICA – Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, United Kingdom, (2005) and “Hardcore” at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2003).
Henrik Plenge Jakobsen is represented by Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris.
For additional information about this artist, visit Mutual Art
