Mikael Jackson and Sophus Ejler Jepsen: For miles … & tanton

Welcome to the opening Thursday 25 September at 5 – 8 pm

Mikael Jackson and Sophus Ejler Jepsen at Copenhagen  Ceramics, 2014
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen


Mikael Jackson: Tower, 2014
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen


Sophus Ejler Jepsen: Concrete Island, detail, 2014
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen


Mikael Jackson: 'Long', 70 x 20 x 10 cm, earthenware and porcelain, 2014
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen


Sophus Ejler Jepsen: ‘B’ and Harlequin-box. ‘B’ as in bloom, breasts and nameless botany. Bisque-fired porcelain, h 30 x dia 14 cm + Harlequin-box – sketch for a flexible packaging-system. Hand-cut and folded cardboard, h 50 x dia 27 cm, 2014
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen

Press Release:
Mikael Jackson and Sophus Ejler Jepsen: For miles … & tanton
25 September – 18 October

Materiality and balance – and a young man’s search for his lost shadow in the concrete-jungle of Chamisso. Two very different artists meet in the next exhibition at Copenhagen Ceramics

At Copenhagen Ceramics ceramicist Mikael Jackson will be showing a new series of works that explore the physical conditions for balance with the architecture of the gallery-space itself as the starting point. The ceramic works consist of juxtaposed geometrical elements, whose meaning as both freestanding and supporting elements is scrutinized.

The geometric elements are developed singularly and their respective forms are decisive for the various methods of stacking being employed in the construction of the objects and consequently
account for the actual shaping of the final works.

The works appear as formal studies, where the essence of stacking, supporting, hanging and holding together constitutes the core of the investigations into what notions such as balance and materiality really are about. The shape of the final object is given only when the last element is put into place.

Sophus Ejler Jepsen, by contrast, employs many different materials for his work-production and among these; he has quite frequently been working with ceramic materials, notably porcelain, with a specific interest in its classic blue/ white expression. He has been challenging the culturally inherent exclusivity of the material through unconventional construction methods and elabora-tions, such as using cardboard and paper as shaping tools, whereby he has obtained surprising expressions, leaving the materiality of the porcelain inseparable from the marks of these tools.

He presents this exhibition in the following manner:

” tanton is an exhausted and somewhat lost botanist, who looks for his lost shadow in a tundra of crystal on the remote island of chamisso”

”… his head filled with homesickness, contempt of home and hawaiian flower garlands, he writes in letters to his friend ..”

”we had hardly escaped the great wave, before the earthly paradise, where mina later was to hand me the flower garland, appeared in the horizon”

” as we finally reached the steep coastlines of chamisso I was in an appalling condition. The captain let my herbarium be thrown overboard in the storm, my head was aching with exotic flowers, breasts and unnamed botany and my loins were burning with desire…”

” ….fired the clayey cliffs of chamisso into cement, cursed my homestead, myself, crushed the chalk and the clay with my balls, burning the stone powder in a clearing, -burning and crying.. ”

”…tried, hesitantly, in newly mixed concrete, to rewrite the lost botany, the foreign names and my lost shadow”

Sophus Ejler Jepsen adds:

’tanton is a romantic fiction based on Adelbert von Chamissos’ fantastical life and work , written , sketched and hatched - brought out - within a ceramic scale from plaster and cement to glaze and porcelain. It is continuing my work of unravelling the romantic starting point of the ceramic revolution of the 1900 – turn of the century ’.

Mikael Jackson has a Master’s Degree from the Royal College of Art in 2008. Among his latest exhibition are: Architectones, Ann Linnemann Gallery, Copenhagen, 2013 ( solo); Puls Contemporary Ceramics, Bruxelles, 2012; Biennale Internationale de Vallauris, France, 2012; Copenhagen Ceramics, with Inhabitants ( group show), 2012; The Biennial for Crafts and Design, Koldinghus, DK, 2011 and Across, Ny Tap, Carlsberg, Copenhagen, 2011.

Sophus Ejler Jepsen was educated at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. His works are represented in e.g. The Danish Arts Council Collections; Vejen Art Museum, DK and in private collections. Recent shows, e.g. : Sculpturepress.org at Jens and Olivia Holm-Møller Museet, Holstebro, DK, 2013; Skovsnogen, Alt_Cph 2013; Med leret som gidsel, Vestjyllands Kunstpavillon, Videbæk, DK, 2013; Grænselands-udstillingen, Åbenrå, DK, 2013; Skygge og Spejl, Vejen Kunstmuseum, DK, 2011.
The exhibition will be opened by Teresa Nielsen, Museum Director at Vejen Art Museum, on Thursday 25 September at 5 – 8 pm.