Solo exhibition
Casted rubber, inkjet print, spot lights
2025

“He works without the light. It’s not a rigid principle, rather it’s an unplanned circumstance, almost a coincidence. In fact, he lives to shine, but dirty industries do better under tuxedo-colored skies, under restricted access, under the ground. A certain amount of darkness is required, too, for the street to really pop. For the holes to really open. It’s not a matter of revealing anything private, he’s just convinced about the spiritual value of hungry holes.

He’s headed to the palace. He’s working at the palace tonight. Undecided about whether he pre- fers to take orders or to give them, but what he knows is that he really likes to be involved in quite committing group dynamics. Orgies during office hours or vice versa. A workday is mainly about serving and fixing and then he gets off. A question of opening gates and closing them again before too many enters.

Beneath the palace is the black-dotted sidewalk beneath the black-dotted sidewalk is the shit beneath the armor is the skin beneath the skin is the g-spot. Come and smell. It’s not really a con- crete scent, but it keeps you awake. He enjoys to stroll, he enjoys rushing forward and going down. This whole city used to be wet, he thinks, as he guards his holes. Moist and moldable like wax or infatuated hearts. Very similar to societies, the heart is most stubborn right before it melts.

He has these fantasies about being illuminated. About glorious ascends from the gutter or about outshining nobility crackheads depending on what type of day it is. He is one big invitation, that’s what he gets paid to be, and he is one big hideout, that’s what he can’t help. His conscious thoughts are buried in black shafts, he needs to get rid of them to properly enter the stage, shower in its main-character-beams. The fact that he looks gorgeous and secret is due to vast amounts of vanity. He is eager to stay matte, shiny surfaces are usually less enigmatic and he wants to be scrutinized (but fully never disclosed). He has these fantasies about living in a street-sized fish tank.
Like a club or an ass, he was born to tempt. Streets keep welcoming him, rubber keeps enclosing him, dandies keep craving him, they can’t decide if he looks more like peak perversion or a sunrise. What is sealed is always tempting”

Installation
Flatbed print on glass, concrete cast, photos made in collaboration with erotic photographer and stripper David Johnson
2024

”Street Cast merges the two associations of its title: Casting non professionals in public space as the subjects of the photographs, and literally casting in the street.

The models in the triptych of over-sized photographs are uniformed laborers who work in urban space, and whose occupation is tied to their bodies and the built environment. Bech Jespersen understands this visible labor as also an embodied performance subjected to the public gaze; an erotic spectacle of the body at work, where individuals are transformed into objects of desire and archetypes of masculinity.

Elaborating how the idealized male laboring body – complete with uniforms and props – is a dominant trope in sexual entertainment, Bech Jespersen invited the street casted workers for a photoshoot with the erotic photographer David Johnson, whose past vocation as a male stripper provides a nuanced take on the performativity of work. With nods to the conventions seen in classical erotica’s representation in pop culture, Johnson’s work crystallizes the idea of erotica as fiction and abstraction, rendering quotidian human relations and toil into forms of seduction.

The resulting collaborative works have been printed on large sheets of glass that mimic the smooth surfaces of the modern cityscape (at once transparent and hyper-reflective), and recall the facades of strip clubs and store fronts. In front of the photographs, Bech Jespersen has placed casts from the cityscape, transforming the exhibition into a street and stage for the performers in the images. a threshold that demarcates certain forms of activity, presentation and movement – a liminal bridge between the public and the private.

Conflating theater, striptease, and the street, Bech Jespersen calls attention to how all architecture is a choreographing of the body, a site for performativity that sets a scene and influences the actions of its occupants. Architecture depends on the human body for its proportions, while the body in turn finds and understands itself through architecture. Street Cast exposes the eroticism of this relationship, as well as the erotics of labor itself, by investigating how masculine sexuality, seduction and desire are coded within our urban environment”

Biannual exhibiton in Freetown Christiania
2025

For futher documentation visit https://www.instagram.com/christiania.biennale

Propeller, driveshaft, glass plate
2025

Aluminium cast of costume nose, exhaust pipe, suit jacket, folding chair
2025

Performance
Collaboration with hair stylist Gitte Guldhammer
2025

Solo exhibition
Gif´s, dry wall, glass
2023

“In 2014, Disney published the latest version of the Disney Look. The book, which is handed out to everyone working in disney world, contains detailed descriptions of how the disney employees should present themself with in the disney world park. It outlines specific standards for hairstyles, clothing, accessories, and overall grooming. 

• Hair must be neatly cut on the back and sides, forming a smooth, symmetrical appearance so that it does not extend beyond or cover any part of the ears or the shirt collar. The overall style must be neat, natural and balanced proportionally.

• A shaved head is permitted, as well as a very short military-style cut. Shaving of the eyebrows is not permitted.

• Conservative braided hairstyles for males without beads or ornamentation are permitted. They must be styled above the ears, cut above the collar and be neatly braided close to the scalp in straight rows.

• Tucking hair behind the ears, or pinning or tucking it under a hat to conceal an unacceptable hairstyle, is not permitted.

• Extreme or bi-level styles are not permitted.

• Hair products may be used to create a soft, natural hairstyle within these guidelines.

• Artificial hair is permitted if it looks natural and meets all of the above requirements.

• Sideburns should be neatly trimmed, straight and even in width, and are permitted to extend to the bottom of the earlobe. They should blend naturally from the hairline and from the length of hair on the head.

• Flares, muttonchops or pencil-thin sideburns are not permitted.

In 1930 Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychiatrist, introduced the concept of Orgone energy, 

A hypothetical Libidinal life force. He believed this energy was crucial for mental and physical well-being. To harness Orgone energy, Reich designed Orgone boxes — small enclosures where individuals would sit for extended periods. Reich theorized that staying in these boxes could accumulate and intensify Orgone energy, providing an increased orgasmic energy.

Reich saw sexual liberation as a revolutionary force that could challenge oppressive societal norms. Reich envisioned a harmonious integration of sexual freedom within a Marxist framework, where individual liberation would contribute to the larger transformation of society.

the self needed to be set free, be uncontrolled. 

In 1950 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took legal action against Reich leading to the destruction of orgone accumulators and the prohibition of their use”

Silkscreen print on aluminium sheets
Commissioned installation for the night club, Den Anden Side
2022

Installation
Aluminium sheets, silkscreen print, mirror foil, glass, steel, fluorescent tubes, concrete tiles, Collaboration with Miriam Kongstad
2024

Mail: johanbechjespersen@gmail.com
Phone: +4523835739

*Born 1991 in Aarhus, Denmark. Lives and works in Copenhagen

EDUCATION
2021–2024 MFA, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Sculpture School
2017–2020 BFA, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Visual Arts
2015–2016 BFA, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2025 StarCut, performance with stylist Gitte Guldhammer, Gl. Strand, Copenhagen
2025 SHAFTS, Solo exhibition, Inter.Pblc, Copenhagen
2025 Landing 2025, Group exhibition, Kongegaarden, Korsør
2025 Lost and Found, Duo exhibition, Ågalleriet, Frederiksværk
2024 Graduation Exhibition, Group exhibition, Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Copenhagen
2024 Super Highend Underground, Group exhibition, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen
2023 YIPPIE!!!, Group exhibition, Månefiskeren, Christiania
2023 DEAD LABOUR, Solo exhibition, Galleri Q, Copenhagen
2023 Extras, Group exhibition, IMÇ 5533, Istanbul
2022 Papparazzi, commissioned installation for The Night Club, Den Anden Side, Copenhagen
2022 Bananskolen, Group exhibition, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
2021 METANOIA / BUNNYLAND, Duo exhibition with Miriam Kongsted, Arcway Night-Lands Connector
2019 STR ALT, Group exhibition, Bark Gallery, Berlin
2018 The Ferns, Duo exhibition with Thomas Bremerstent, Galleri PODIUM, Oslo

SELECTED PROJECTS
Marts 2026 Opening Night, bar and exhibition space, Copenhagen
2026 Ateliers Pusherstreet, new residency in Pusher Street Christiania, made in collaboration with Almene Kunst Klubber, Christiania, Copenhagen
2025 Christiania Biennale, biannual exhibition across Christiania, Copenhagen
2023 Life in Hell and Certain Dinners, performance series created in collaboration with Contemporary Art Writing Daily, Why Words Now, Copenhagen
2019–2022 Co-founder of the artist-run gallery Arcway Night-Lands Connector, Jennifee-See, Amager, Copenhagen

AWARDS
Blixprisen 2024, my graduation piece Streetcast was awarded the blixprisen 2024