Yasmijn Karhof - Skylarking I

Skylarking I

2000, panoramic photograph, 65 x 900 cm, and performance with three-piece suit and underwear
Images above: ‘Skylarking,’ Compressie Ruimte, Amsterdam, NL

‘Suit2’ is the artist’s contribution to ‘Skylarking,’ part I, presented through a single family sharing a three-piece suit and underwear. The suit fits the grandfather traditionally, while others wear each piece upside down, adapting it across ages and sizes.

During the show ‘Skylarking,’ the family joined the installation, swapping clothes at intervals. Occasionally, the grandfather passed a garment to others, who wore it uniquely, assigning new functions to it—trousers as a jacket, underwear as a top, for example.

‘Skylarking’ parts I and II are environmental installations for ‘The Compressie Ruimte’ and ‘Playstation’ (Gallery Fons Welters’ project space), initiated by the artist Yasmijn Karhof with Lucas Lenglet, Govinda Mens, and Nicky Zwaan shortly after graduating from the Rietveld Academy.

"SKYLARKING – both part I and II – is conditioned by a dramatic intervention in spatial makeup, one whereby the architectural limitations of the original room are used but also altered to recreate a new, but still recognizable space. Within this parallel space, a ‘route’ is thought out by the makers, not one marked by a motivation to physically manipulate the viewer, but one, instead, which offers a kind of concentration, or, better said, a kind of condition or circumstance in which the viewer is given a (new) space to investigate, experience and concentrate upon. It is a complete experience, a total space, built up out of raw elements, which are allowed to be just that, raw."

Maxine Kopsa

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