Double-channel video sculpture, screen installed in the ground (x2), 55:00 min, no sound

The Pleasure of Envy consists of two screens lowered in the ground, creating an illusion of two enclosed spaces connected by a small opening. In one room is a woman, in the other a man. They can’t see each other however they feel the other person's presence fighting each other in a tug of war. Both entangled in and pulling a green robe in a hard and brutal, other times sensual and fond manner, the act reflects envy's interpersonal character. The two people are apart, however connected; imprisoned, isolated, lonely, sometimes nearly desperate. Their gravelike spaces symbolize envy's crampedness, its strangling apathy, but also the fragile relationship it mediates – not necessarily being devastating, however being bearable it must be balanced in a two-way and tightening manner, just like the robe. In just one second it can become suffocating. It is only the viewer who can see that the two bodies are interlocked by the snake-like rope of envy and thus, it is only her or him, who can see the full scale of envy and how it, like a tightening noose, ties us all together.

The Pleasure of Envy and Envy My Beloved are Katja Bjørns contributions to The Seven Deathly Sins, a row of exhibitions made in collaboration between different art museums and European Culture Capital 2017. Both works explore the character of envy and make an issue of its undefinable nagger and the inner pain it causes; its introversion, its gesture and its undeniable strength occupying or defining the relation between close friends or family.