Open Time.

Open Time. The Royal Cast Collection, The Danish National Gallery. Video installation. Copenhagen, 1996.

The Royal Cast Collection was founded in 1895 at the same time as similar collections in Europe and USA. The individual countries acquire fine plaster casts, the idea being that masterpieces of art should be accessible to everyone. I am fascinated by this idea and find that video art is closely related to “taking a cast of reality”.

The exhibition features the human body and “opens time” through a dialogue between the antique and the modern way of perceiving pictures (represented by the cast collection and the television in this case). Two media – both copying something original and both a subject for mass production – are confronted. A confrontation where the sculptural language of the past is mirrored in modern man.