Danish artivist Kristian Von Hornsleth engage in dialogue with your consciousness when putting the homeless people on display.

CARMEN HUST | ARTICULATE #19 | APRIL 2019
​
The Danish artist and activist Kristian von Hornsleth (1963) seem provocative, when he imports the homeless people from London and exposes them in glass cages in his upcoming exhibition SUPER CRASH in the Museum of Art in Randers (Denmark). The funny thing about provocation is that it needs a receptible recipient for provocation to function at all. And that’s exactly what is continuously succeeding for von Hornsleth. But why are popular media and people in general so provoked by his work?

In 2017, von Hornsleth initiated his project Hornsleth Homeless Tracker (HHT), which consists of varies components, such as photography, biography, prints, video documentation, GPS trackers and an additional app. In his project, von Hornsleth portrays the homeless and prints their portraits on golden plates engraved with the logo and signature of the artist. The golden plates, which measures 40 x 60 centimeters and are framed, are sold to the highest bid. With the golden portrait, there is an app through which the buyer can track "his homeless", as the homeless are equipped with a tracking device. The coordinates of the homeless are available to the public 24/7.

The rhetoric’s of von Hornsleth regarding Homeless Tracker and his project Buy a Homeless (2018), have received tremendous critique in popular media, holding the claim that Kristian von Hornsleth is directly violating the human rights, as declared by the United Nations back in 1948. Indeed, Kristian von Hornsleth is a provocation, but as he claims, that’s the only way to cause a stir and trigger people to engage themselves in debates such as ‘common wealth’ and ‘human rights’, along other socioeconomical questions, which they wish to avoid. 

Led by popular media, people have been commenting on concepts, such as human trafficking, but fail to an extent to comment upon the ideals and the society structure, they themselves have contributed to vote into congress of parliament. This fact is disturbing to Kristian von Hornsleth, who with his projects wishes to enable a new structure within society, which today itself isn’t sufficiently flexible to support the individual, when isolated from the whole. ​

Censuring works (and debates) like von Hornsleth’s somewhat facilitates the deprivation of the homeless people, and other marginalized groups of society, to take control over their own estate, by ignoring their consent, when agreeing upon their participation in Kristian von Hornsleth’s projects. The same applies for others of his projects, where the popular media have a strong reluctance to the way von Hornsleth expresses himself, and therefore deprive the implicit participants of their voice and their freedom to choose for themselves.

Kristian von Hornsleth isn’t noisy, when he puts the homeless people on display. It is our bad conscience that is noisy, as von Hornsleth reminds us that we are not consistent with our own principles and view of human nature. 

---

This article about KRISTIAN VON HORNSLETH takes part of ARTICULATE #19. Read, download or order your print version of the full publication below