'The Kiss 2' (2017) video and 'Squeaky bum time' (2018) installation, exhibited in the group exhibition LER! (CLAY!)

With the exhibition CLAY! Museum Jorn proudly presents 8 internationally acclaimed artists who all work experimentally and innovatively with clay as a material. They work with raw, unfired clay in large installations and physically challenging performances. They create monumental installations with sculptures in raw or glazed clay, and they give the audience a chance to become part of their projects.

The participating artists are: Miquel Barceló (E), William Cobbing (UK), Alexandra Engelfriet (NL), Lawrence Epps (UK), Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen (DK), Marien Schouten (NL), Clare Twomey (UK), and Anne Wenzel (NL).

William Cobbing exhibited works:

squeaky bum time (2018)
The installation loosely refers to the iconic 1992 UEFA Euro final, in which Denmark beat Germany 2-0. A set of scaled-down Danish players in terracotta clay takes on a team of white clay German players. The pitch is half-buried with undulating mounds of clay, and as if the players have been swamped in a kind of quagmire. Advert hoardings from the original game adorn the edge of the pitch, with further adverts such at Atari added to emphasise the obsolescence of the event.
The work is a progression of ongoing aspects of Cobbing’s practice; slapstick performance with clay, touch and tactility, dirt as matter out of place, and notions of entropy in land art. Cobbing wishes to explore this popular sport through the prism of his practice, to create a kind of uncanny and humorous excavation of it.
The phrase ‘squeaky bum time’ emerged at the climax of the 2003 Premiership football league, when rivals Arsenal and Manchester United were fighting to win the league. United’s manager Alex Ferguson coined the phrase, and is an example of the 'mind-games' he used to unsettle the opposing manager and team, and alludes to the anxious feeling of squirming in your seat in the final minutes of a game.

The Kiss 2 (2017)
The video is a reworking of The Kiss (2004), involving the same tender, yet claustrophobic, embrace of two figures prodding at formless lumps of clay joining their heads. The work emphasizes the sensation of touch, as the figures haphazardly feel their way around the opposing head. The pinching and massaging of the clay creates subtle squelching sounds, overlayed with the rhythm of the figures breath strained from the weight of the clay. The action brings out the humorous aspect of the action; the absurdity of shaping and forming, but without a resolution. It also conveys a mix of feelings between sensuality and repulsion, of a tender act practiced blindly.

• http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/upcoming_exh...
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f42oFCTN...