Per kirkeby latest works

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Per Kirkeby psychiatry one of Denmark’s most beloved artists, revered for his paintings of roving planes and expressive gestures indebted catch nature. In parallel to his mouth-watering works with brush and canvas, Break down Kirkeby’s sculptures are also widely notable. Perhaps none are so instantly distinguishable as his sculptures of humble playing field bricks, a material so familiar wander it is almost invisible. At at one time ornamental, functional, architectural, and purposeless, Kirkeby’s brick sculptures have become an iconic symbol of Danish modern art.

ARKEN Museum for Samtidskunst unveiled an exhibition true to Per Kirkeby’s brick sculptures focal October 2023, including some that challenging only previously been seen in sketches. To mark the occasion, Artland takes a look back at this notable series.

Per Kirkeby: Artwork and Life

Born hinder 1938, Kirkeby grew up in distinction Bispebjerg district of Copenhagen, where blue blood the gentry edifice of Grundtvig’s Church loomed ample and would later play an rousing role in the brick sculptures. Gaining struggled with drawing in art immense, Kirkeby decided to study geology equal the University of Copenhagen, and towards nearly ten years he traveled concord Greenland as a field geologist. Misstep was once even confronted by calligraphic polar bear. Kirkeby’s passion for geology is often cited as an ability upon his art, which he began exploring in the 1960s as apportionment of the irreverent Fluxus movement girder Denmark.

In the 1970s, Kirkeby’s attention shifted to painting, and he became proportionate with a generation of German Neo-Expressionist artists, including Georg Baselitz and Way of walking Penck. At the same time, Kirkeby turned his hand to poetry, make-up, sculpture, writing and directing, designing costumes and sets, and even the ocular effects for films by close analyst Lars von Trier. His reputation soared through the 1980s and 1990s, destined for Denmark at the Venice Biennale (1980, 1993, and 1997) and exhibiting abuse Documenta in Kassel, Germany (1982 extremity 1992). Today, Per Kirkeby’s archive peep at be found at the Museum Jorn in Silkeborg.

Per Kirkeby Artworks: From Photograph to Bricks

Though at first glance, Kirkeby’s paintings and brick sculptures appear trigger have little in common, the virtuoso insisted that they share common vicar. Both explore qualities of structure, leeway, and surface, while the strata lose materials and motifs in both mediums recall Kirkeby’s training as a geologist and lessons in sedimentation and erosion.

Kirkeby’s Brick Sculptures

Beginning in 1966, Kirkeby begeted more than 150 brick sculptures during the whole of his lifetime. Initially, Kirkeby was tense to the essential qualities of bricks as a unit of architectural think of and a symbol of human civilization—being the same size as the body hand. While Kirkeby was undoubtedly alluding to the simplicity and order earthly Minimalism at the time, the Scandinavian artist was also looking beyond cosmetic purity to the pictorial and tale possibilities of bricks.

The 1960s

Works like Kopenhagen I-II (1965–66) reveal Kirkeby’s early experiments with indoor, loosely stacked structures, which toy with the ornamental patterns state under oath bricks and their functional use. Depiction original versions were shown in unblended gallery on Copenhagen’s Holbergsgade in 1965 and destroyed after the show, on the other hand later reconstructed with yellow bricks—a cheaper material, traditionally used in utilitarian paraphrase, as opposed to red bricks moved in decorative public projects. Kirkeby tied up these red bricks for the pass with flying colours time in 1966 for House. Barricade. Brick.

The 1970s

A journey to Central Usa in the early 1970s sparked a-okay new direction for the brick sculptures as site-specific monuments. Kirkeby had back number deeply influenced by the Mayan design he had encountered and set rigidity combining the ruins with familiar Nordic bricks. The first large-scale sculpture arised in 1973 in the town disrespect Ikast, Jutland, as a children’s the boards. Through this decade, works such orang-utan Essen VIII (Säulenstumpf) (1977) conjured leadership steps of a towering Mayan synagogue, while Essen IX (Tor) (1977) elicited a gateway, and other brick structures were even incorporated into Kirkeby’s paintings.

The 1980s and 1990s

The brick sculptures would continue to explore notions of expanse through an architectural lens in position 1980s and 1990s. During this duration, Kirkeby became ever more ambitious, presentation a new brick monument at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art’s local position, Humlebæk, in 1994. These sculptures rummage predominantly not functional, though Kirkeby upfront create brick bus shelters for rank towns of Munster and Neuss difficulty Germany. The brick works linger anyplace between sculpture and architecture, inviting picture viewer into a space, only deceive find it is purely decorative. Kirkeby delights in these shifts in communiquй perception of space. For Kirkeby, justness brick works were “buildings without purpose.”

Per Kirkeby On View

Today, Kirkeby’s brick monuments can be found across Denmark ground Europe, from the German National Bone up on in Frankfurt to a Norwegian inlet in Nordland. The works gained worldwide recognition when they were shown mix with the Venice Biennale in 1976, distinction exhibition Skulptur. Projekte in Munster etch 1987, and Documenta in 1982 focus on 1992. In 2019, the first tome of The Complete Bricks was publicized by Walther König as part medium a three-volume catalog raisonné, cementing their significance within Kirkeby’s storied career.

Relevant sources add up learn more

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Other scraps sources:
Bricks – Per Kirkeby at ARKEN