Elevator Pitches

Elevators, like exhibitions, are public spaces that adhere to a strict social protocol. You enter alone or in a group, keep your distance towards strangers, greeting them with a non-committal nod, and then quickly avoid eye-contact. You exchange a few niceties with people you know. You look at the wall, you look at your feet, you look at your phone. While the duration of an elevator ride is predetermined, the amount of time spent in a gallery is up to you. Does something catch your attention and capture your gaze? A detail that elicits a close look? Or are your eyes just scanning the surface of things? An elevator pitch is a short description of an idea, a product, or a company that explains the concept briefly and in simple terms. It originates from a time where the breathtaking vision of modernism—scale, speed and success—still loomed large over the sidewalk and it attests to a belief in entrepreneurial spirit and the accompanying credo that “time is money.” Social hierarchies are at play—whoever you’re trying to convince goes up and that’s where you want to be, too—, so you better have a good opener. Transposing the metaphor of the elevator pitch to contemporary art, makes the former seem archaic. Who in their right mind would want to be associated with the power structures of corporate offices and attention grabbing simplistic speech? While contemporary art has hastily renounced all these seductions, it has poorly veiled—but definitely not forgotten—both that it is subjected to them and that artists depend on others believing in their ideas. So, why not think of an exhibition as an elevator pitch? Or, more precisely, of this text as the pitch and this show as the concept I’m describing to you as quickly and easily as possible? You press a button, you pick up this text; the bell rings, the doors open and the stage is—mine. I speak and you listen (some hierarchies can’t be levelled out): In Thilo Jenssen’s solo show “Elevator Pitches” you encounter two series of works. The eponymous Elevators (2024) show stock images of elevators, printed and transferred onto canvas. The visible traces of their making counter the images’ metallic finish. Scratches and marks resemble those carved with a key in the aluminum paneling of a worn-down elevator in a public building or an apartment house. Jenssen’s elevators are empty, yet they presuppose a human figure and in turn become almost figurative themselves. Despite their generic origin, they exhibit distinct characteristics: Some tall and lean, others broad-shouldered, the metal handrail folded like arms across the chest, with a cheeky smile luring you in, or a skeptical frown: What are you looking at? You enter hesitantly, unsure if you’re in for the ride. By contrast, the second series of works on view at Galeria Fran Reus are abstract compositions. They are connected to the elevators by their subject matter: Bright colors emulate the digital paths one’s eyes and fingers follow on the screen. While both the mechanisms and media of attention have changed, the goal stays the same: to keep the costumer, consumer, user, you name it, engaged. Aesthetically referencing heat maps that visualize data generated by repeated actions, they attest an urgency as well as a subliminal compulsion to respond. Titled Panels (2024), these images are the result of a laborious and open-ended painterly process. Multiple layers of color are applied to the canvas and then selectively sanded off again to reveal the underlying coating. Like a wound you just can’t keep your hands off, these crevices might indicate those areas of the screen you just can’t stop looking at. Yet, the reflective surface of the Panels puts a halt to these fleshy associations and instead places them in today’s screen cultures where body and device merge. So, how was I? Did I capture your attention, hold it successfully and gently guided your thoughts and movements through this exhibition? Did you agree or disagree with my interpretation of the works—or did you even care? In most elevators, you can have a moment with yourself. There’s your face staring back at you in the mirror. In exhibition spaces, such an intimate encounter is rare. The works on display neither mirror you nor do they offer themselves to your use, but quite often they appear happily content with themselves. Texts, like this one, are a means to facilitate an encounter between you and the works you’re facing. They provide hints where to look, and, yes, sometimes they tell you how to think and feel about it. Sometimes, they even try to be self-reflective, as though this piece of paper could have an I.