Job Koelewijn
Job Koelewijn, Jump, 1998, video, shown at the Guildhall, Newcastle upon Tyne
Job Koelewijn’s work characteristically has an instantaneous, anti-climactic approach complemented by playfulness and irony. His installations often derive their power, poetics and emotional effect from a single aesthetic moment, which he isolates and externalises for his viewer. Koelewijn’s conceptual concerns are often autobiographical and are rooted in a cathartic experience of art.
In the video installation Jump, he addresses the relationship between space and the human body. From a hole in the ground, as deep as the artist is tall, Koelewijn jumps up, endlessly springing from the depths in an attempt to keep his head above ground level. By vigorously employing his own body, the artist acts as a sensory catalyst through which the viewer experiences physicality and its limitations. In a metaphor for survival, Koelewijn expresses the individual’s concern that his or her existence is of no consequence to a society that has become too immense to navigate or to truly comprehend.
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