Prestidigitation |
Prestidigitation |
Smoke and Mirrors |
Smoke and Mirrors |
—Prestidigitation
2009
16 mm film
3 min. 12 sec
This 16 mm film shows various sequences of a sleight-of-hand trick in which a man magically makes a coin disappear and reappear. In his suit, tie and dress handkerchief, the magician looks respectable and serious and yet also mysterious, owing to his trick with a glittering coin that could scarcely be followed with the naked eye. This effect is reinforced by cinematic means, showing the magician against a planar background, sometimes in colour, sometimes in black and white, positive or negative; the figure dissolves into a number of tiny pixels until only a white plane is left behind, and the game starts again from the beginning. Illusion and reality are difficult to separate, and not only in a magic trick: here too they blur, pointing to the manipulation of the viewer that is often part of magic.
—Smoke and Mirrors
2009
10 framed Polaroids
each: 14,5 x 16,5 cm
Magic and illusion are recurring motifs in Jacob Dahl Jürgensen’s work, as they are in these ten Polaroids. A woman disappears in a mysterious cloud of smoke, only to appear elsewhere. The mirrors reflect her image, causing it to appear in several places at once or as a woman with multiple personalities.
There are evident borrowings from Surrealist photography and the ‘ghost photos’ that were popular in the early twentieth century, which were based on the ancient idea of the soul of the world and the attempt to establish a connection between it and the physically perceivable world. At the same time, the images have strong occult and spiritual references, reinforced by dramatizing the scenery and the black and white aesthetic. Mirrors and smoke are, moreover, among magician’s favourite instruments for causing people to disappear in whole or part or to drill or saw through them before bringing them back onstage unharmed.
Biography
*1975 in Copenhagen
2004–2005 MA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, London
Lives and works in London
Selected solo exhibitions
—2009
Wilkinson Gallery, London
Nicolas Krupp, Basel
Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich
—2007
Croy Nielsen, Berlin
Wilkinson Gallery, London
—2006
Schnittraum, Cologne
Selected group exhibitions
—2009
Euphoria Left the Room, Scion Space, Los Angeles
Summer show, Wilkinson, London
—2008
Idealismusstudio, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz
All the best, David Roberts Foundation, London
Visit, Larm, Copenhagen
Pastiche, Sølyst Center, Jyderup
Sculpture Garden ’08, London
The Unfair Fair, Lote Arte, Rome
—2007
The object is the mirror, Layr Wuestenhagen Contemporary, Vienna
Anna Hellwing Gallery, Los Angeles
Curacion Geometrica, The Reliance, London
—2006
Deep into that Darkness Peering, Galerie Kamm, Berlin
Modern Lovers, Three Colts Gallery, London
Foxy Production, New York
—2005
Urban-nonurban, Lasalle-SIA School of Art, Singapore
Lore, Glasgow Project Room, Glasgow
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Prestidigitation |
Prestidigitation |
Smoke and Mirrors |
Smoke and Mirrors |