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Alle photos © Jacob Aue Sobol / MAGNUM
Take a Brake
Speech at Galerie Polka, Paris 10 March 2016 by Morten Bo
Mesdames a Messieurs, friends and guests. It's an honor for me to introduce to you the Photography of Jacob Aue Sobol. And he has something to say, something important: Get off. Exit the train not to stay where it has stopped, but to explore, satisfy your curiosity. On your daily ride between marriage and job you must take a brake. Between fidelity and loyalty, take a brake. Get off the race not to settle down, but to meet man. Let randomness steer you to the unexpected, the strange, you had forgotten, what you drove past, the trip from the cage of confidence to the prison of habit, get off and look around. Be seduced by the moment; don't be afraid to get stuck. You must arrive, but you must also depart. That's what he wants to say with his exhibition. Get off the race and experience the suddenness, the unpredictable moment that hides the meaning of life, you can look and look and never find it, but if you exit the train and open yourself to impressions, then you will discover that the meaning finds you.  Four boys are playing ball in a tiny space, dug out in a court behind them are houses scattered sprinkled from the sky, big, small, hovels, sheds, a four-by-four, it is the city's taxi and around, mountains, conifer-covered hills of snow. There is in the city an obvious calmness, a few figures on the trodden paths, doors to enter, windows to open, and high above it all, heavy cables spanning from pole to pole across the city, power speeds across like an airplane in the sky, here life is lived, you exist and you belong.  Do you want more than that? You must follow the power over the mountains, embark on a journey of frozen expanse, where icy metastases is spreading through valleys, where tousled conifers are unable to shake off the snow, where reindeer huddled in the wind, it's dark, it's cold and it's winter.  
 If you want something more, you can go over the mountains to unfamiliar cities, or into the people, knock on someone’s door and love your neighbor. Tear off the shirt, feel the pain, sense you are alive. 
 Is life chaotic, confusing and tense as the scratches on the wall made by restless young people who have no idea how to use their forces, or is it adventurous and ready to fly as the swan, waiting for the wings to carry? Is it innocent and childlike as the spiky boy or complete and finished as the schooner under full sail over the sea to foreign shores? Proudly he shows the picture above, the kid in the shelled room, his dream of being someone. Yes, who am I? I would like to know.  
 Am I the stranded boat that never again comes in the lake or the uncertain steps up the drenched staircase? In fishnet stockings and decorative dress with golden shoes and full of expectation. Is that me? Am I the embracing lover burning with desire, or am I bringing home through the snow my toboggan and a sack full of firewood?  Am I he, whom no one can love? An outcast freak, a fingerless hand trying to scrape the frost off the window to look out, in vain, is that mine, is it me? Or am I forgiven for my disability, my apathy, am I he who must learn how to love?  She is
lying on the floor naked, thin with bared sex, but do I dare? Do I
dare, skin against skin, take her in my arms, warm her, make love.
Can I get the urge, or do I keep standing and let her lie?They are so full of intense beauty, Jacob’s images, so real, they're the truth no matter what, you will know, and if they cannot answer, they ask you a question instead: What are you afraid of? Why are you disgusted?  No, it's not an interrogation, you do not have to answer, you can proceed to the next pictures, there are also some amusing ones, comical, the old wise owl in the window or the elaborate, fairytale princess carriage where only the skeleton is left, or dogs parading in the living room, as in a circus act they stand on the backs of each other, or the boy in the cardboard box, that opens his window and mischievously looks out at the world. Arrival and departure.  
 The exhibition began as a journey with the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Beijing, but several travels have been added, it has been a long-term project without an end, but the book on Bangkok is finished, By the River of Kings has been printed. And what a story is being told about mistrust, powerlessness and apathy. Here the blood flows, the body hamstrung, how can anyone love when dignity has run out? 
 A gutter with rippling brackish water and a boy, kneeling on the bridge over the stream, mirrored in the stinking black water. Then he reaches out after the image in the water to feel himself and caress his cheek. But in the slum city of Klong Toey there is no room for caress, the slightest touch and a ripple will remove the image. The wall is crying, sun is glaring, love is on the run. Here sounds silent screams of orgasmic spasms. Here you meet the duck before it is slaughtered, and the boy before he must die. A hair on the cheek, a scar on the abdomen and a door at the end of the alley, death, dressed in black is staring at me as he goes by. 
  Life is a struggle; you move on the edge, one false step and you fall, fall down, disappearing into the darkness of oblivion. 
 Myriads of people as if thrown in a container, an amputee lying on the street, a rumpled cat trying to escape and skin, wrinkled with age hangs loosely on the meatless bone, further away from the prosperity and welfare you cannot come. Here are the leaves sharp as knives and necessity more important than self-esteem. 
   If you want to study the creature survival, come to the slum city of Klong Toey and come close to the boys that dress as girls to sell themselves to men, they know all about life inside out.  And then suddenly in the midst of the misery in the grainy drizzle between threatening buildings, a girl so fine in pretty dress with opened umbrella. There she stands alone on top of the stairs as if she waits for her turn to come. So straight, so clear, so full of hope, when the time comes, she knows what to do. She must break the cycle of disadvantage and be somebody. She must be a model, make a difference and give others a reason to hope. Is that why Jacob has taken to the asshole of the world, to give hope format and importance? If there is hope for the hopeless, there is also for you.  A ray of sunshine caresses the dark as a dancing girl swings her straw hat, yes, there is hope and humor and a boy in the park, urinating on his dog. And there, crawling on the bare chest, a beetle on a leash, why that? Because it happened.    But a crocodile on the stairs between the pipes and boards, why? Because it was there.   Truth is naked, man is nature, and the picture is what you envision. By the River of Kings is a symphony. A musical tale of structure and fate. From the fighting cock’s bushy plumage and the turbulence-patterned shirt to the dream of becoming an eagle to fly.  An exhibition, a book and in a moment a performance where Jacob Aue Sobol and Morten Svenstrup take you on their journey: 12 Months of Winter. I hope you will all enjoy. |