Copenhagen based artist Jacob Jessen (b.1976) works primarily within the fields of installation and time-based media. He is a graduate MFA from the School of Sculpture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2009. Jessen creates conceptual artworks where one often finds profound philosophical issues — such as a longing to encounter the limit of human awareness — condensed into elegant objects and images.
Jessen’s investigation aims to register the phenomena that frames our existence and pretends to go beyond the range of our sensory perception. By asking controversial questions of time and space, infinity and finitude, Jessen reveals and materializes values of our existence, which we are intellectually aware but which, if considered in their uttermost expression, are unfathomable to us. Focusing on the process of transformation, the transition from one state to another, Jessen witnesses the world’s endless change. His minimal works often revolve around gradual and explosive destruction, an extreme state of change. They all represent, in different ways, an attempt to approach the limits and possibilities of our physical and cognitive range. Thus, they underscore a primary tension in Jessen’s work, through which he wants the viewer to contemplate mind-blowing phenomena.
Jessen’s work has been widely exhibited on a national and international scale, with selected exhibitions in Copenhagen, Paris, Hamburg, Tallinn, Stockholm, Rome and Amsterdam, among others. Recent shows include Danske Grafikeres Hus, Vaal Gallerii, KUMU Museum of Modern Art, Artissima 18, IMO Projects, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Hinterconti, and Minibar Stockholm. He is a recipient of the Danish Arts Foundation, The Academy Council and the Danish Arts Council. Furthermore, Jacob Jessen currently holds a professorship at The Academy of Art in Trondheim, Norway, and he regularly collaborates with the artist-run exhibition space TOVES in Copenhagen, Denmark.
