V1 GALLERY PROUDLY PRESENTS
Life and Death
A solo exhibition by Jes Brinch
V1 Gallery is honoured to present LIFE AND DEATH, a solo exhibition by Jes Brinch (DK). In LIFE AND DEATH Jes Brinch once again takes up the battle with his old arch nemesis; the illusion of an objective reality. With sculpture, painting and installation Brinch raises questions about the projections, ideas and facts that form the basis for our vision of reality such as birth, love, education, partnership, sex, family, entertainment, success, freedom, identity, old age, leisure, death and contemporary life.
A large marble sculpture, a “reality producing” machine, takes a central position in his exhibition. In one end of the machine, raw material, such as senses, an infant, carrots, a draft beer, a cow and money, enter. The ingredients are mixed in the machine and in the other end, it spits out reality packages onto a conveyer belt – an image of our manmade reality.
This work is central in the exhibition in more than one respect. Jes Brinch has spent his career challenging our notion of reality. His works serve as an invitation to be curious, to ask more questions as to what constitutes truth, and to look into the engine room in an attempt to figure out, who operates the ‘reality producing’ machine. Brinch asks us to look at and ponder our everyday lives, and he incites us to relate to each other. In large and small, it is our reality, and it is up for debate. The subject matter is not new, it has been an eternal burden since the dawn of man, however, this does not make it a less interesting theme.
In 2009, Jes Brinch, was awarded the Danish Arts Council 3 year stipendium. Together with his Vietnamese wife, Vu Thi Trang, he founded Hanoi Future Arts (2008 – 2010) an experimental forum and residency programme for contemporary art in Hanoi. Today Brinch lives and works in Singapore, he is a needed and treasured voice, not only in the arts, but also in our society in general.
In conjunction with LIFE AND DEATH, you can experience Jes Brinch in collaboration with director Erik Pold in a new theatre performance, The Great Illusion. Thematically the two projects are interlinked, they both revolve around the great illusion of an objective reality.
On the occasion of LIFE AND DEATH a new monograph on Jes Brinch’s works will be published entitled ”Unlearn Reality”.
