“Did I miss something ?”
Jeppe Hein
Jeppe Hein, Did I miss something ?, Château du Pé, Saint-Jean-de-Boiseau, création pérenne Estuaire 2007 © Martin Argyoglo/LVAN
At Couëron on the edge of the Loire River, like in Graz in Austria, in the sculpture Park, a bench has been put in front of the water. When sitting on the bench, the visitor becomes the catalyst of an enormous aquatic event: a 20-meter-high water jet is spouted up in the air. When he leaves the bench, the fountain disappears and the visitor thus understands he is the one triggering this almost frightening action on the landscape.
Jeppe Hein was born in 1974 in Denmark, he lives and works between Copenhagen and Berlin. His works are based on the principle according to which the viewer can modify them through the way he experienced them. Indeed, this is the visitor presence or absence which sets apparently inanimate objects going and triggers an amazing operation. Jeppe Hein thus uses the reactive capacity of the art work, pushing the boundaries of conceptual art with humour. Clean lines and geometrical objects or plain and recreational installations, his works fit in the continuation of reductive sculpture tradition and at the same time take the opposite course initiating a incongruous dialogue between the works and the visitor.
Jeppe Hein has exhibited to PS1 in New York, at Yvon Lambert’s Gallery and at Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris and at Johann König’s Gallery in Berlin.
— Œuvre réalisée grâce au soutien de Suez, Partenaire Officiel, avec l’appui technique de Diluvial, Partenaire Services.