Gallery Steinsland Berliner is proud to present BILLBOARD, a solo exhibition by Copenhagen-based artist Esben Weile Kjær. BILLBOARD marks the artist’s second presentation at the gallery. The exhibition is comprised of a series of works, on canvas and in sculpture form, that spring from his recent practice in various ways. 

Esben Weile Kjaer’s (b. 1992, DK) artistic practice examines how identity and authenticity is expressed and valued within his own generation. Concurrently, he examines how pop culture and technology shape our experience and understanding of freedom and community. A flashy visual language informed by the history of pop culture as well as the aesthetics of the entertainment industry are used to contemplate the position of art in relation to surrounding cultural industries. 

Through primarily performance, sculpture and installations; the artist creates work that could in itself be a form of performative pop culture. Weile Kjær received a degree from The Royal Danish Academy of Art in 2022. He also holds a degree from the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. The artist has either exhibited or performed his work at several institutions including Copenhagen contemporary (DK), Centre Pompidou (FR) and GL STRAND (DK). Besides BILLBOARD, the artist is currently showing exhibition BUTTERFLY! At Arken Museum (DK). “Esben Weile Kjær has created a room for distorted projections, a fun-house mirror hall.

 The exhibition BILLBOARD is like a reflective surface, aimed toward both the artist’s own practice and contemporary pop culture, in which meaning is amplified, twisted or entirely re-contextualized through images and objects – reflections – that are thrown back at the observer. It’s a playground of representation, a self-referential system in which reality is distilled into icons and images, sometimes entirely losing its referent. In that sense, the exhibition imitates the spectacle of contemporary culture, where signs are constantly remixed and definitions change costume in ultra-speed. BILLBOARD manifests society’s expansion-driven circular logic, where images and words bounce back and forth until they become just empty vessels for anyone to pour their drink in.”

 - Excerpt from exhibition text by Nora Arrhenius Hagdahl