Jonathan Monk

Re-casting everyday objects as art through the artistic gesture of presentation has been a key strategy since the start of the twentieth century. Thus, every artwork involving objects not originally meant as art harks back to the dawn of modernism. Jonathan Monk (*1969 Leicester, GB) is of this school and frequently works with objects that he stumbles upon. In the series from which JBL – control one comes, he draws on technical appliances that are often on track to become design classics. With their presentation on white bases or in white object cases, the appliances enjoy a resurgence in significance. Monk thus presents loudspeakers, USB sticks, radios or gaming console control units. The loudspeakers in JBL – control one convey the irony of art presentation in a manner particularly loud and clear. Displayed as they are in a completely sealed object case, the sound the devices were actually designed to produce cannot even be registered. Thus, in the inoperative state on display, they have evolved completely into an artistic exhibit.