No Man is an Island II

No Man is an Island II

Allowing us to explore the architecture of anticipation, staged intimacy, and choreographed seduction, the camera from the stage pans the interior of a strip club. We see five men spread throughout the room, two of whom are a couple. They sit stiffly, staring into space. Then they begin to move, drinking beer, and smoking cigarettes. The camera zooms in on their faces. A young man who breaks out into a sentimental song and a pony-tailed man at the bar with skeptical expression and uncertain gaze are particularly noticeable. We instinctively feel that there is a closer bond between these two men, a suspicion that increases when the young man begins to weep, as the man at the bar stands, assuming the pose of Christ, his deep voice providing a resonant background bass tone. With the situation’s oblique references to the Chorus of Greek tragedy, musical performances and kitsch painting, Just provides us with images that refract and refine traditional ideas about male sorrow, sentimentality and social intercourse.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Jesper Just
Cinematography: Kasper Tuxen
Editing: Jesper Just
Sound: Jakob Garfield
Actors: Johannes Lilleøre, Ole Hedegaard, Niels Borksand, Lars Huniche, HC Pedersen
Format: HD
Color: Color
Production Country: Denmark
Production Year: 2004
Duration: 5'
Contact: Perrotin Gallery France

Jesper Just

Jesper Just is a Danish artist who lives and works in New York. From 1997 to 2003, he studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. His work has been presented in several solo exhibitions, in venues such as the Galerie Perrotin in Tokyo, Japan (2021) the Galerie Perrotin in New York, USA (2020), the MAAT in Lisbon, Portugal (2019), and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France (2015), whereas he has work in museums including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2013, Jesper Just represented Denmark at the 55th Venice Biennale. Jesper Just uses the language of cinema to confront and divert the stereotypical Hollywood constructs of masculinity and femininity, as well as the biased representation of minorities and people with disabilities in mainstream culture. His short films and multi-projection video installations question the mechanisms of cinematic identification and break viewers’ expectations of narrative closure by unfolding surrealist, emotionally ambiguous, open-ended, and often silent situations or encounters. Interested in how public and private spaces define and shape human interactions, Just further plays with the notion of architecture as a performer, to echo and expand his characters’ enigmatic journeys.

Filmography

2002 No Man Is an Island (short)
2003 This Love is Silent (short)
2004 Bliss and Heaven (short)
2005 Something to Love (short)
2006 It Will All End In Tears (short)
2007 A Vicious Undertow (short)
2007 Some Draughty Window (short)
2008 A Voyage in Dwelling (short)
2010 Sirens of Chrome (short)
2011 This Nameless Spectacle (short)
2015 Servitudes Film #7 (short)
2017 Continuous Monuments (short)
2018 Circuits (Interpassivities) (short)
2023 Interfears (short)