Stalke Out of Space Project #20
Art Frankfurt
Peoples playground/ A Slice od Toast/Berlin
Frans Jacobi and Lars Bent Petersen
+ Guest
19-23 March 1998
Stalke Galleri Copenhagen presented a collaborative project designed specifically for Art Frankfurt ’98 by the two Danish artists Lars Bent Petersenand Frans Jacobi.
The project, Peoples Playground / A Slice of Toast, consisted of a raised platform offering an overview of the entire fair hall, combined with an interactive sound installation integrating real-time audio recordings and a cinematic soundtrack. The intention was to create a situation that raised questions while simultaneously addressing the market conditions of the art fair. Through the platform and sound system, the viewers’ perceptual sightlines were humorously fictionalized.
Peoples Playground / A Slice of Toastrepresented an attempt to use the fair stand in a fundamentally different way, creating a critical distance from the conventions of the standard art fair booth.
The title referred partly to a song included in the project, taken from the soundtrack of Vampyros Lesbos, and partly to the Jamaican expression describing the act of speaking over a prerecorded track.
Visitors experienced this latter phenomenon upon entering the work. The notion of interactivity was based on the idea of the “open work of art,” in which the viewer could enter into a productive relationship with the artwork and thus play an active role in its realization. The work remained unfinished in form, continually altered through the viewers’ individual experiences. By putting on the headphones, the viewer established a private space within a public environment.
These aesthetic principles positioned Peoples Playground / A Slice of Toastwithin a tradition that emphasized the productive role of the viewer and foregrounded subjectivity as a central component of the artwork experience.
The project marked the first collaboration between the two artists, both of whom had long-established solo practices within the conceptual strand of the Danish art scene.
Installation view of Peoples Playground by Frans Jacobi and Lars Bent Petersen, Art Frankfurt 1998
Installation view of Peoples Playground by Frans Jacobi and Lars Bent Petersen, Art Frankfurt 1998