JBL – control one
, 2010
Loudspeakers, wood, Perspex
38 x 52 x 36 cm
© 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.
