The long kiss Goodnight
Frans Jacobi
Stalke Galleri
Vesterbrogade 14A
10.3 to 19.4. 2000
Stalke Galleri presented the exhibition “The Last Kiss Goodnight” by Frans Jacobi from March 10 to April 19, 2000.
The exhibition consisted of two installations, Evening (Room 36) and The Last Kiss Goodnight (Room 38), as well as the photo series Imagine More and Real Time Wind.
Since the early 1990s, Frans Jacobi had worked on an extensive series of installations, the so-called “rooms.” These comprised atmospherically charged interiors in which fragmented narratives were suggested through the use of simple scenographic elements. The works revolved around what might be described as “grand” emotions—love, melancholy, and pathos—yet were consistently staged with a subtle ironic distance.
By that time, Frans Jacobi had created 38 of these “rooms.” A significant number of them had only been shown abroad, reflecting Jacobi’s extensive international exhibition activity in the preceding years. The works included in this exhibition had previously been presented in Frankfurt, Budapest, and New York. Although all the works shown were newly produced in 1999, the exhibition summarized themes that had been characteristic of Jacobi’s artistic practice throughout the 1990s.
The photo series Imagine More presented close-ups of cigarette smoke and curling forms, a motif first introduced in the photo series Imagine from 1993. The fleeting smoke formations created ephemeral compositions that referred to the meditative nature of smoking, while also functioning as a broader invitation to quiet contemplation.
The Last Kiss Goodnight (Room 38) introduced another recurring theme in Jacobi’s work: artistic inspiration. This theme was articulated through a self-referential spatial composition in which the artist’s situation at the moment of the work’s conception was staged with a sense of cinematic pathos.
In Evening (Room 36), a quieter and more desolate atmosphere was suggested—a dark bedroom illuminated solely by the flickering light of a television in an adjacent room. Here, reflective contemplation shifted into a heavier and more restrained melancholy.
By contrast, the small photo series Real Time Wind presented three curtains animated by wind and strong daylight, opening the exhibition toward a lighter and more airy atmosphere.
With the exception of Evening (Room 36), all the works were produced in New York during the artist’s residency at the International Studio Program (ISP), where Frans Jacobi represented Denmark in the autumn of 1999.
Several contemporary reviews described Frans Jacobi’s exhibition The Long Kiss Goodnight at Stalke Galleri as a significant articulation of his ongoing exploration of space, absence, and suggestion. In his review for Information, Rune Gade emphasized Jacobi’s ability to stage everyday interiors in which emptiness and residual traces acquire psychological and emotional weight. According to Gade, the installations functioned as scenographic environments for the unspoken, where absence operated as an active element alongside the physical objects, drawing the viewer into a quiet yet intense atmosphere marked by melancholy and reflection.
Other critics similarly noted Jacobi’s consistent engagement with mood-driven installations that balance the cinematic with the ordinary. The exhibition was described as a sequence of rooms that do not present complete narratives but instead invite mental images and internal storytelling on the part of the viewer. The restrained use of light, furniture, and sound was understood as a means of creating a slow, contemplative experience in which time appears suspended.
A further review highlighted the exhibition’s internal contrasts, where more enclosed and somber spaces were set against lighter photographic works that opened toward air, movement, and daylight. Taken together, The Long Kiss Goodnight was widely perceived as an exhibition that crystallized central themes in Jacobi’s practice throughout the 1990s: absence, repetition, emotional resonance, and a subdued yet precise staging of human presence through what is left behind.
References: reviews by Rune Gade (Information) and other contemporary press coverage.
Frans Jacobi
Stalke Galleri
Vesterbrogade 14A
10.3 to 19.4. 2000
Stalke Galleri presented the exhibition “The Last Kiss Goodnight” by Frans Jacobi from March 10 to April 19, 2000.
The exhibition consisted of two installations, Evening (Room 36) and The Last Kiss Goodnight (Room 38), as well as the photo series Imagine More and Real Time Wind.
Since the early 1990s, Frans Jacobi had worked on an extensive series of installations, the so-called “rooms.” These comprised atmospherically charged interiors in which fragmented narratives were suggested through the use of simple scenographic elements. The works revolved around what might be described as “grand” emotions—love, melancholy, and pathos—yet were consistently staged with a subtle ironic distance.
By that time, Frans Jacobi had created 38 of these “rooms.” A significant number of them had only been shown abroad, reflecting Jacobi’s extensive international exhibition activity in the preceding years. The works included in this exhibition had previously been presented in Frankfurt, Budapest, and New York. Although all the works shown were newly produced in 1999, the exhibition summarized themes that had been characteristic of Jacobi’s artistic practice throughout the 1990s.
The photo series Imagine More presented close-ups of cigarette smoke and curling forms, a motif first introduced in the photo series Imagine from 1993. The fleeting smoke formations created ephemeral compositions that referred to the meditative nature of smoking, while also functioning as a broader invitation to quiet contemplation.
The Last Kiss Goodnight (Room 38) introduced another recurring theme in Jacobi’s work: artistic inspiration. This theme was articulated through a self-referential spatial composition in which the artist’s situation at the moment of the work’s conception was staged with a sense of cinematic pathos.
In Evening (Room 36), a quieter and more desolate atmosphere was suggested—a dark bedroom illuminated solely by the flickering light of a television in an adjacent room. Here, reflective contemplation shifted into a heavier and more restrained melancholy.
By contrast, the small photo series Real Time Wind presented three curtains animated by wind and strong daylight, opening the exhibition toward a lighter and more airy atmosphere.
With the exception of Evening (Room 36), all the works were produced in New York during the artist’s residency at the International Studio Program (ISP), where Frans Jacobi represented Denmark in the autumn of 1999.
Several contemporary reviews described Frans Jacobi’s exhibition The Long Kiss Goodnight at Stalke Galleri as a significant articulation of his ongoing exploration of space, absence, and suggestion. In his review for Information, Rune Gade emphasized Jacobi’s ability to stage everyday interiors in which emptiness and residual traces acquire psychological and emotional weight. According to Gade, the installations functioned as scenographic environments for the unspoken, where absence operated as an active element alongside the physical objects, drawing the viewer into a quiet yet intense atmosphere marked by melancholy and reflection.
Other critics similarly noted Jacobi’s consistent engagement with mood-driven installations that balance the cinematic with the ordinary. The exhibition was described as a sequence of rooms that do not present complete narratives but instead invite mental images and internal storytelling on the part of the viewer. The restrained use of light, furniture, and sound was understood as a means of creating a slow, contemplative experience in which time appears suspended.
A further review highlighted the exhibition’s internal contrasts, where more enclosed and somber spaces were set against lighter photographic works that opened toward air, movement, and daylight. Taken together, The Long Kiss Goodnight was widely perceived as an exhibition that crystallized central themes in Jacobi’s practice throughout the 1990s: absence, repetition, emotional resonance, and a subdued yet precise staging of human presence through what is left behind.
References: reviews by Rune Gade (Information) and other contemporary press coverage.