In order to produce his work Les Quatre Saisons de Moniteur
belge (1996), Denmark collected all the Belgian legal publications
during one year, then printed them and finally compressing the whole into the
jaws of four metal clamps. The thin pages of the legislation disappeared behind
the unbreakable volume resulting from the action of the vice; only clouds of
black lines, visible on the edges, still bear witness to the written word. The
law stifles, the vise clamps, the human work is compressed in the tool and the
whole becomes a sculpture. The work of Denmark presents its critique in a
playful approach, here the interpretations are free: one might easily think of
the illegibility of legal jargon or, materialising the weight of administrative
authority. The meaning fluctuates, it is not fixed; at the same time
intellectual apprehension gives way to sensory uneasiness, the abundance of
words disappears in form, weight, and matter.
