Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, Metanoia/Bunnyland (installation view).

Press Release, March 2021

Following the industrialisation, modernist architecture with its dedicated use of steel, glass and concrete, became prominent in Europe and America. The first Playboy magazine launched in 1953, and grew into one of the biggest promoters of modernist architecture world wide. In 1937, Walt Disney Animation Studios released its first fully animated feature film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, pioneering a new form of family entertainment.

While experimenting with cathode rays passing through sheets of glass, Wilhelm Roentgen discovered the X-ray technique in 1895. Yet, Marie Curie is the one who developed both stronger and portable X-ray machines, which not only became groundbreaking in the fight against tuberculosis, but likewise made the technology so widely accessible, that shoe stores started to offer free X-rays for customers. Nearly 100 years after the death of Marie Curie, her body is still radioactive.

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX A [Aarhus Offentlige Slagtehus, 1894 / An interior for a playboy, Mario Scheichenbauer, 1979 / Cartoon eyes, stock photo / Futuro House, Matti Suuronen, 1968 / Glass dress, stock photo / Nosferatu, F.W. Muranu, 1922 / Playboy pad, circular bed, 1973 / Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney Productions, 1937 X-ray (breast) / X-ray (jaw) / X-ray (pelvic floor) / X-ray (ribs)], 2021 (dimensions variable, glass, steel, concrete, neon tube, photo transfer, motor oil, key chains).

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX A.

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX A.

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX D [Cartoon eyes, stock photo / Kathy Acker at a gym, 1984 / Married to the Eiffel tower, Agnieszka Piotrowska, 2008 / New York City, stock photo / Patrick Bateman’s apartment, American Psycho, Mary Harron, 2000 / X-ray (pelvic floor) / X-ray (wrist)], 2021 (62 x 37 cm, glass, photo transfer, spray paint, aluminium).

Glass facades held together by steel beams, became dominant in ever growing city scapes. And while God died, anti-ornamentation came into fashion, hand in hand with new technological approaches to the body: the desire for transparency and the ultimate truth. Escaping her glass coffin, Snow White runs into the forest, which instantly transforms itself into an entanglement of razor-sharp tentacles and evil eyes. Bewildered and horrified, she’s racing and stumbling while searching for escape, only to arrive at the doorway to the ultimate Playboy pad. Equipped with modern furniture, the pad is elegantly designed to facilitate the choreography of seduction. She is handed a Gin and Tonic, and while the sofa, with a single push, smoothly converts into a bed, the mildly sedated Snow White, now finds herself transitioning from vertical to horizontal position. Ms. Disney has arrived in Bunnyland.

Metanoia/Bunnyland is the first spatial manifestation of a research on sexuality and space, Playboy, Disney and modernist architecture by Johan Bech Jespersen and Miriam Kongstad.

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX F [Sitting Pretty, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, MoMA, 1972 / Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney Productions, 1937 / The Eizo X-Ray Pin-Up Calendar, BUTTER, 2010 / X-ray (lower body)], 2021 (107 x 40 cm, glass, photo transfer, spray paint, aluminium). Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX E [Le Fievre D’Urbicande, Benoît Peeters and Francois Schuiten, 1987 / Playboy’s Progress (Playboy’s penthouse), Playboy Magazine, May 1954 / The Eizo X-Ray Pin-Up Calendar, BUTTER, 2010 / The Modulor scale, Le Corbusier, 1948 / X-ray (spine)], 2021 (107 x 35 cm, glass, photo transfer, spray paint, aluminium).

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX F & INDEX E.

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX F & INDEX E.

Johan Bech Jespersen (b. 1991) is an artist based in Copenhagen. He has recently completed his BFA from The Royal Academy of Denmark. Miriam Kongstad (b. 1991) is a choreographer and visual artist, based in Berlin and Copenhagen. She holds an MFA from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, and a BA in choreography from Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT).

Due to the current covid-19 measures, only a limited amount of visitors will be allowed into the gallery at once. To ensure a safe environment, we kindly ask you to follow all hygiene measures and precautions. Individual viewing times can be scheduled via jennifee.see@gmail.com.

Graphic design in collaboration with Anna Gunvor Hyttel.

Special thanks to Lauryn Youden, Vestsjællands Arbejdende Kunstværksteder and Eks-Skolens Trykkeri.
The exhibition is generously supported by Amager Vest Lokaludvalg.

Soft opening: Saturday the 3rd of April, 12-17h. Facebook event
Exhibition period: 4th - 30th of April, 2021.
Opening hours: Saturdays and Sundays: 13-18h and by appointment.

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX B [A Room Of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf, 1929 / Chicago Playboy Club, 116 E Walton Street, 1960-1986 / Sitting Pretty, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, MoMA, 1972 / Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, production sketches, 1937 / Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, 1931 / X-ray (hip joint) / X-ray (lower leg)], 2021 (glass, steel, concrete, neon tube, photo transfer, motor oil, key chain).

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX B.

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX B.

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX C [Archizoom Associati, Mies’ lounge chair and illuminated ottoman, 1969 / Kneppemaskiner/Frændeløs, Lene Adler Petersen and Bjørn Nørgaard, 1970 / Playboy pad, 1970s / Wassily Chair, Marcel Breuer, 1925-1926 / Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney Productions, 1937 / Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, production sketches, 1937], 2021 (67 x 41 cm, glass, photo transfer, spray paint, aluminium).

Johan Bech Jespersen & Miriam Kongstad, INDEX B.