Jeppe Hein was born in Denmark, where he grew up on an organic farm near the ocean, raised by teacher parents. A life in the open air, with animals, a tractor and fields as far as the eye can see. Jeppe Hein still loves nature, which he considers a refuge to recharge his batteries. That is why he lives near Grunewald, a forest in the south of Berlin, where he also has a small studio. When I open the door, I am face to face with the forest, he says. For more than ten years, the artist, who exhibits all over the world, has been very careful to preserve the life balance that is essential to his creativity. It became necessary for him, after he painfully experienced his limits when his early career quickly pushed him to centre stage.
In 2002, a young gallery owner, Johann König, was celebrating the opening of his space in Berlin by exhibiting his close friend Jeppe Hein. They met at the end of the 1990s when Jeppe studied at Städel Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Frankfurt. For the gallery s inaugura- tion, the guests discovered a 70cm rough steel ball that moved by itself and hit the wall where it drew black lines. Jeppe Hein s creation caused a sensation. The only way to stop the heavy metal ball was to leave the room. In the sensors that detected and reacted to people s movements, philosopher Finn Janning (a childhood friend, who published two books and several essays about the artist) sees a criticism of neoliberalism: by triggering a process that is as destructive as it is uncontrollable, everyone becomes a stakeholder.
A witty heir to the conceptual art and minimalism of the 1970s, Jeppe Hein has since developed a body of work that always involves the public. His apparently simple installations surreptitiously modify the relationship between work, viewer and space and provoke dialogue. Invisible Labyrinth, Modified Social Benches, Appearing Rooms: each time, the spectators are placed in a playful situation that also makes them leave their comfort zone.
THE WORLD OF JEPPE HEIN