Jeppe Hein vibrating cube in Please Please Please, 2009
Jeppe Hein’s first exhibition in Vancouver, Please Please Please, is currently on at the Contemporary Art Gallery. The largest of the installations is a seemingly bare white gallery space. Once the viewer enters the confines of the space, an alarm is activated. This made me uncomfortable at first, and I made a move to leave through the door I came in order for the alarm to turn off. After navigating the space away from the center of the room towards the walls, the alarm would turn off and wouldn’t be triggered unless I entered the center. This forced me to stay along the walls of the room. As a reward Hein has placed white vinyl letters composing a message in English at eye height. From the center of the room the message was not visible due to the letters being camouflaged by the sterile white walls of the gallery space. The message upon the walls pleads for the viewer to “Please dance, please sing, please be noisy, please question the gallery space, please touch, please…etc”. This was much to my surprise for at first glance the space seemed barren, but Hein manages to alarm and convey a sweet message through minimal means. He uses the walls of the white cube in order to promulgate a message of being critical of the institution of Art. The centre of the gallery is the usual place for viewing, but because the alarm forces the viewer to walls (or out the door completely) Hein’s creates an environment which brings the viewer up close to the walls and the hidden message contained. I wonder if this is truly subversive although. I would hope to find this message camouflaged in other sites outside of a gallery, asking people to question all reality, not just the systems that be in the art world.
The other installation is a neon sign stating “Please do not touch the art” which can only be seen from the street. This juxtaposes the message inside. The lights function to highlight the assumption that art work is not to be touched, felt, or participated in and it is only looked at. Yet the material the sign is created from is a dated medium. Our contemporary technology allows for high definition billboards, and LED animations. These neon lights are a retro form of sign making. To me, this is a dated sign, materially and ideally.
The final piece in Hein’s exhibition is an aluminum cube which vibrates itself around the open space of the gallery. This too is motion sensed. The minimalist cube takes the phenomenon of perception the Minimalists embraced and adds the element of kinetics. How the viewer perceives the work depends on their perspective to the cube but also where the cube has stopped and started gyrating from. I followed around the cube a bit, trying to see if it was affected by my presence. It bounced off my leg moved in the opposite direction. I was not aware to if the cube could sense obstacles. I assume it can only be activated and moved around randomly. (I wonder if it could be put in the corner and if the cube would get stuck there) I acknowledge I didn’t feel comfortable enough to move the cube to test my theory which cheapened the message on the walls. This may be my own boundaries, or that Hein’s minimal choices still seemed uninviting despite the invite to “please touch the art”. I touched it, but wouldn’t move it or play with it. That stigma still exists for me.
I find Hein’s outdoor public sculpture to be more interesting then these works. Art in public is far more inviting and seems to say “please touch, please sit…” without having to spell it out for the viewer.