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Jens Pecho

Aah, Awe, and Ugh

Installation vidéo | digital | couleur | 7:8 | Allemagne | 2023

The video work "Aah, Awe, and Ugh" explores the changing connotations of the term "awe". It moves in a sophisticated rise and fall of narrative tension between the production of knowledge and constantly newly generated uncertainty. Pecho's essayistic video is accompanied by the rousing first chords of the pop song "Let's Dance" by David Bowie, which are played in a continuous loop whose promise of a euphoric climax never materializes. The work is embedded in an ensemble of sculptural works, including the soft sculptures "Throw Away, Do Not Eat" (oversized replicas of silica bags), and two round clothing racks hung with T-shirts, "Unisex" and "Perfect Fit". The postcard multiple "Ceres and Triptolemos with Corvus cornix" shows a scene of Greco-Roman mythology photographed in the park of Sanssouci Palace. The group of figures is temporarily accompanied by a hooded crow.—The allegory captures the moment when man learns the first cultural technique: agriculture. Altogether the installation confronts us with the disillusionment that follows the enlightenment, but instead of proposing a re-mystification, it embraces the absurdity we are left with. The installation was produced with support of the Video Art Award Bremen, which Pecho received in 2019.

Jens Pecho (*1978 in Frankfurt am Main / Germany) studied at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne as well as the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. At the end of his studies he was awarded with the Spiridon-Neven-DuMont-Prize. As a visual artist, he works mostly with text- and video-based installations. From 2014-2016 he was a fellow of the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Foundation, in 2019 he received the Video Art Award Bremen. His works have been shown internationally at museums as well as film festivals, among them the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Forum d'Art Contemporain – Casino Luxembourg, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany, the Message to Man IFF Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation, and the Uppsala International Short Film Festival, Sweden.