Upon the request of the Cobra Museum, the Danish artist Jakob Kolding (Denmark, 1971) presents Corbulations, a new work developed in response to the exhibition Le Corbusier’s Fourth Dimension. Corbulations makes optimum use of the various positions between the work of Le Corbusier, the work of the CoBrA artists and the perspective of the artist himself.
In Corbulations these perspectives are played out in an exhibition layout conceived by Kolding, including works by Le Corbusier (ranging from paintings and tapestries to sculptures and drawings) and CoBrA artworks. These are furthermore combined with a series of new collages and a range of cut-out figures by Kolding, that interact with each other, the other works on display, as well as with the exhibition visitor. The work is subdivided into three themes. The start and the end of the exhibition are literally framed by the theme Architecture. Two other themes are the human body, and ‘plan’ and ‘play’.
Kolding’s work revolves around an expanded notion of collage, often creating constellations of objects (he speaks of spatial collages) in which the social, physical, psychological and political are merged.
Kolding has shown a keen interest in modern architecture since he was young: “In a way I almost literally grew up in between Le Corbusier – without whom a suburb like Albertslund would not have existed – and Asger Jorn and Cobra – with posters in my childhood home. Between the plan and the dérive. These two positions profoundly influenced me while growing up, and later seeped into my work. Although often presented as contradictory positions, they are of course also part of each other. You cannot have a plan without life, without play, as both Le Corbusier and Asger Jorn knew well, even if they approached it differently, maybe even from opposite directions.”