Johan Bech Jespersen’s installation consists of upholstered sculptures, sculptural speaker towers assembled from older hi-fi speakers, and a 10-channel sound installation. The furniture is upholstered and covered with photographic prints based on an archive of sky photographs taken by the artist. Together with the speaker towers, they form a spatial landscape where visitors are invited to linger, listen and become enveloped by sound.

Between transcendence and seduction
"High" explores the tension between transcendence and seduction. While transcendence is traditionally associated with religion, elevation and ideas of the divine, seduction is rooted in the body, rhythm and sensory experience. In the installation, these spheres come together through the church bell, the lounge, the sky and a shared listening space.

Rather than positioning them as opposites, High allows the elevated and the bodily to flow into one another. The spiritual becomes sensory, while sound and the body open onto something that reaches beyond the immediately physical.

The history of Nikolaj Kunsthal as part of the work
The installation takes the church bell as its point of departure – one of the city’s oldest sonic markers. For centuries, church bells structured everyday life, marking transitions between work, rest and ritual, and calling communities together. The bell was therefore not simply a signal, but a rhythm that helped shape both time and communal life.

This history becomes a central material in High. All sounds in the installation are derived from recordings of Nikolaj Kunsthal’s own church bell. The building, once a church and now a contemporary art centre, thus becomes more than the setting for the work – it forms an active part of its sonic and historical fabric.

Through processing, repetition and rhythmic shifts, the sound of the bell gradually becomes detached from its present-day function as a marker of clock time. Instead, it opens onto a different understanding of time – one carried by rhythm, ritual and collective movement.

Read Nanna Friis’ exhibition text, which is also available as a handout in the exhibition (DK/UK).

"High" is on view at Nikolaj Kunsthal from 27 August to 4 October. The exhibition opens on Wednesday 26 August, 4–9 pm, with a DJ line-up curated by Rewild (Martha Hviid + Fruit DJ + Alfredo92 + Erdal Bilici), Pink Oyster serving oysters and bubbles, and free beer from Depanneur – for the early and the quick!

The exhibition has been made possible with support from the Statens Kunstfond, Rådet for Visuel Kunst og Knud Højgaards Fond, Grosserer L. F. Foghts Fond and Statens Værksteder for Kunst. The Platform exhibition space has been realised with support from Det Obelske Familiefond.