In the past ten years, Jesper Just has become known for his short dialogue-less films combining melodrama with film noir, featuring people in enigmatic emotional relationships, with music playing a prominent narrative role. Just presents these ambivalent, two-sided, and often homoerotic amorous situations, which form the essence of his oeuvre, by diverting Hollywood movies’ dramatic tension and emotional twists to reveal their normative dimension and, conversely, expose the complete spectrum of human relationships and emotions as normal facts of life.

In his recent works, he frequently turns to lone figures – “nomads in their own minds” – through whom he revisits his favourite themes of confused feelings, sexual ambivalence, and vulnerability. Acceptance of the complex movements of the mind and the often contradictory motives underlying human relationships is an essential exercise for anyone seeking greater awareness. Repeatedly modelling this acceptance in the subjects that they address and casting the viewer in the role of empathetic witness, Just’s films are inward-focused views that exemplify the questions raised by the theme of lucidity explored in this edition of Le Mois de la Photo.

Biographical Notes

Jesper Just was born in Copenhagen in 1974. He lives and works in Copenhagen and New York.

Jesper Just is a graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. His work has been exhibited extensively internationally. Jesper Just’s works are in many prestigious collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Tate Gallery in London; and Luxembourg’s Museum of Modern Art.

Just is represented by Galleri Christina Wilson in Copenhagen and Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris.

The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s contemporary exhibition program is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.