Jeppe Hein and the art of playing

In Jeppe Hein’s studio, it already smells deliciously like lunch in the morning. That's because we meet in the large kitchen, where cooking takes place for the many people (currently 15) who help Jeppe turn his often crazy ideas into objects or architecture, exhibit or sell them, and keep track of the many projects.

Since Jeppe is particularly busy this week, he can’t be there himself. That’s why his colleagues Stephan and Sophie show us everything and we get the impression that they are at least as proud of the many colorful and reflective works as Jeppe himself.

First, Stephan leads us through the exhibition, which is quite different from exhibitions in the art museum. Here we are allowed to reach into boxes, feel objects (chalk!) and smell drops (lemon!). Although there are also pictures hanging on the wall, they are by no means just for looking at: they consist of empty circles in which we draw how we feel at the moment. We give the exhibition a lot of laughing mouths and huge rows of teeth, but also a few raised and crinkled eyebrows.

Stephan then takes us behind the scenes; here, many works are just being created – for example, a clock in the form of a giant ball on the roof of a house that rolls into the next corner every quarter of an hour. We wonder how people know that’s supposed to be a clock? Stephan is sure that people will first wonder and therefore talk about it with many others. In no time at all, the whole town will know. And that’s exactly what Jeppe likes: he wants to surprise people with his art (and not only with it – Sophie tells us that Jeppe loves surprises and prefers to prepare parties in secret). And he wants people to talk to others about his art, or about the feelings and ideas it triggers in them. That’s why a lot of his work is in public places, so that as many people as possible can see it, even without going to the museum.

It’s also important to Jeppe that people participate in his art. For example, he likes to build benches that have a gap in the middle or look like a loop. He thinks it’s good that children use the artworks for skating. In this way, they become part of the city and the lives of its inhabitants. We also think it’s great that we can join in, and we try it out on a big red streetlight, which is not straight but twisted in on itself. One of us even gets to the top. Art can not only be beautiful, but also really fun!

When Sophie leads us through the architect’s office and the back exit to a playground outside, we first think that it belongs to Jeppe's studio (after all, it’s a bit like the playground inside, too). Sophie laughs and shakes her head: The playground is only here by chance.

But perhaps it was this fountain and the children who played in it that inspired Jeppe to create his many water features, which can now be seen all over the world.