Jesper Just – No Man is an Island II, 2004

Jair Lanes

Venue

Museum of Contemporary Art of Lyon (macLyon)

Lyon

Born in 1974 in Copenhagen, Denmark Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Jesper Just’s practice revolves around video and installation. Transferring the codes and techniques of cinema into the realm of visual art, his works break viewers’ expectations of narrative arc and dramaturgy. By creating enigmatic and ambiguous situations, he encourages the audience to focus not on the words spoken or the actions performed by the characters, but on the emotions, mental states and relationships conveyed by the works.

In the semi-darkness of a strip club, a handful of men sit pensively with their drinks. Suddenly, the youngest gets up and starts singing, a cappella Roy Orbison’s song Crying. Gradually, others join in to form a choir. After a few minutes, solitude turns into solidarity, virility into vulnerability. Through the tears and the words sung by the singers, No Man is an Island II leads us to reflect on male identity and the performativity of gender and to reject social conventions.