Issue No. 28 – Control

What is the nature of control? The desire for it—and to be free of it—are essential parts of both life and art.

Jasper de Beijer at Asya Geisberg Gallery

Image above: The artist Jasper de Beijer at Asya Geisberg Gallery on Thursday 2nd of February, 2015. Artwork ©Jasper de Beijer

 

In Jasper De Beijer's newest series, he adopts the visual detachment of an infamous hermit by recreating important historical events from his viewpoint. MKWBR is the twelfth conceptual project in the artist’s oeuvre, which continually probes various modes of historical media representation.

Jasper_de_Beijer-25At  Asya Geisberg Gallery on Thursday 2nd of February, 2015.  Artwork ©Jasper de Beijer

 

In each series, de Beijer begins with scale models sculpted from collaged hand-drawn materials, forming a unique combination of drawing, sculpture and photography. Whether about Dutch colonialism in the East Indies, the English Industrial Revolution, or the Mexican drug war, de Beijer’s work remains true to each series’ specific point of view.

 

colage
©Jasper de Beijer (Left) 4-3-1996 from ‘Mr. Knight’s World Band Receiver’, 2014 ; (Right) 4-6-1994  from ‘Mr. Knight's World Band Receiver’, 2014 . Courtesy of Asya Geisberg Gallery.

 

JDB023_Orleans©Jasper de Beijer: 8-29-2005 from ‘Mr. Knight’s World Band Receiver’, 2014.  Courtesy of Asya Geisberg Gallery.

 

De Beijer’s scenes contain varying degrees of slippage from our own, media- saturated memories. This distance pushes his work into the realm of folklore or archetype, feeling familiar yet not quite accurate, as if a child has drawn his dreams.

Responding to Knight’s echo-chamber of only living in his imagination, de Beijer re-enacts his failure to live in the world as it is, or rather as it is represented, and tries, perhaps in vain, to steer us to a wistful place where we sit around a fire and envision tales told by poets and adventurers. Knowing that unlike Christopher we can never erase being sullied by visual saturation, de Beijer nonetheless points to the power of images that occur as much in our personal interpretation as in the iconic reiterations of our media-deluged era.

Jasper_de_Beijer-5At  Asya Geisberg Gallery on Thursday 2nd of February, 2015.  Artwork ©Jasper de Beijer

 

 

Jasper_de_Beijer-28At  Asya Geisberg Gallery on Thursday 2nd of February, 2015.  Artwork ©Jasper de Beijer

 

 

All the opening images by Heehyun Oh.

David LaChapelle video featuring Sergei Polunin

Michelle Frankfurter: Destino at Half King Gallery