In a world of kitsch and class
It tickles Danish shooting star, Esben Weile Kjær, taking a closer look at the PH 2/1 Limited Edition 2024 from an artist’s perspective.
Reading the world
Esben Weile Kjær already gets inspiration from PH in his home, where he shares that he has a lot of iconic PH lamps. To him, they are simply part of his life and how he understands the world:
“I kind of read the world in icons, in codes and in images that are reproduced and stand for something, and I surround myself with them.”
The power of objects
According to Esben Weile Kjær, everybody in Denmark is familiar with the PH 2/1 and can relate to it because of its rich history. The artist finds that powerful and believes it has to do with his fascination with pop culture, which he sees as a collective experience. He appreciates the democratic aspect of how we can all connect to something, which he enjoys in relation to his practice:
“To work with that and to create a kaleidoscopic scenario, where you look at this object that you already know, but from a different perspective, that’s something I find very intriguing,” he explains.
Patterns of reflected objects
Esben Weile Kjær finds that looking into a kaleidoscope can feel almost hallucinatory, referring to everybody’s childhood experiences with the optical instrument.
He has created a landscape by assembling various patterns with the PH 2/1 Limited Edition 2024 inside a kaleidoscope. In a here-and-now scenario, individual objects exist independently, but also form a blurry, repetitive image that can evolve with time.
PH 2/1 table limited edition 2024
The PH 2/1 Table lamp features warm terracotta-coloured glass and stems from an extensive series launched by Louis Poulsen in 1930 aimed towards private homes. The new lamps were smaller and more affordable, making them easier to place around the home than the classic larger PH lamps.
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