The 1st at Moderna: Janice Kerbel

Deadstar is a ghost town. It is an area so poorly planned for human living that it is doomed to die before it’s been built. When all the minerals are extracted from the mountains and the arable land in the valley is covered by buildings, what is there left to live off? But this city is not planned for gold diggers or fortune hunters. With great care, Kerbel has planned it directly for the inevitable afterlife and the particular needs of its inhabitants. For example, the houses are located mainly on the shaded valley floor and positioned according to the particular constellation of stars that appears if the northern and southern hemispheres are combined. The river runs across the top end of the town, away from most buildings. Ghosts, as we know, shun sunlight and avoid crossing water.

Mixing the possible with the impossible, or the absurd, is a recurring theme in Janice Kerbel’s art. Her works could be described as extremely concretised daydreams. We all harbour more or less strange thoughts that occasionally surface in our consciousness. But to go from thought to action – to a level-headed, almost scientific examination of the possibility of realising a thought, and to plan its execution – is normally quite a big step. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Kerbel does in Deadstar and this is something that characterises many of her works. Take for example the gardens she planned in Home Climate Gardens, taking into consideration the typical characteristics of various indoor environments (including the specific humidity and light conditions of a laundrette). Another example is the book 15 Lombard Street. For two years, under the guise of an architecture student, Kerbel researched the Coutts & Co bank in London at the above address, mapping out its architecture, ventilation system, staff, accessibility, security and more. The information came together in the form of a book and serves as a master plan for how to rob the bank – complete with drawings, diagrams, timetables, decoy operations, escape routes and a hide out in an (existing) abandoned house in the Spanish countryside.

Her works provoke a sense of uncertainty in the viewer, before the realisation hits home that the plans are not sketches, proposals or objectives, but rather independent and finished artworks, which then take on different meanings of their own.

In her work, Kerbel couples wit, precision, poetry and humour with utter seriousness. Reading her works metaphorically, they could be said to deal with longing and escape. One can also point out that she turns the possibilities, and possible limitations, of imagination inside out. As we have seen, she indicates her respect for, and the seriousness of, imagination by her rigorous choices. She is not careless with the unreal. Quite simply, she brings imagination to a head. The works are so complete and detailed that the next step in their development would be to realise them. However, this would by definition be counter-productive as they would no longer retain their special titillation and status as a fantasy. If one went to live on a desert island – to borrow a metaphor from one of her earlier works – it would no longer be deserted.

In other words, her works are both prosaic and eccentric, logical and illogical, rational and irrational. The uncanny and the contradictory accumulate quickly in Janice Kerbel’s works. They may appear small and inconspicuous but they unfold endlessly. Behind every sign there is a precise choice and a story. In the end, however, it is probably the relationship between abstract ideas and the concrete way she deals with them that gives rise to that which is most uncanny. 15 Lombard Street is, of course, completely paradoxical. Its very richness in detail, the fact that it is made public and printed in thousands of copies, makes it impossible as a master plan for a bank robbery. In Deadstar, Kerbel, as a careful gardener, uses impartial logic to map out potential threats and dangers for an existence that is highly doubtful.  On the whole, the status of Deadstar is vague, also in time and space where it oscillates between being a plan – with the promise of a future – and a map of, primarily, a time gone by. It is an uncertain status adapted for ghosts and reflected in the star constellation that was the template for the settlement. When we look at a star, we see the past in the present. The graphic multiple, on the reverse of this text, has its origin in the sky as well, and shows the position of the stars over Stockholm at the exact moment when this exhibition, her first in Sweden, opened at Moderna Museet.

A radio play for insomniacs

Nick Silver Can’t Sleep by Janice Kerbel

Janice Kerbel’s Nick Silver Can’t Sleep tells a narcotic tale of thwarted desire for love and sleep set in an urban garden on a moonless night. Its characters are all nocturnal plants. Nick Silver (Nicotiana sylvestris), a nocturnal subtropical perennial in bloom, longs for Cereus Grand (Selenicereus grandiflorus), an exotic climbing perennial who blooms just one night a year. The two plants are destined, botanically, never to be together.

This is a new commission for Artangel Interaction’s Nights of London series of artist-led projects exploring the city with the people who wake, work or watch over it. Kerbel has developed her project in conversation with insomniacs, sleep scientists and botanists.

The premiere of Nick Silver Can’t Sleep, directed by Ariane Koek, was produced and broadcast on 28 October 2006 by BBC Radio 3 – The Verb.

The cast is led by Rufus Sewell as Nick Silver, Josette Simon as Moonbeam (Ipomoea alba) and Fiona Shawas Cereus Grandiflora.

The play lasts 20 minutes, just longer than it takes to fall comfortably asleep.