Go See – London: Per Kirkeby at the Tate Modern through September 6th 2009
July 17th, 2009
The Siege of Constantinople (1995) by Per Kerkeby, via The Guardian
Currently on view at the Tate Modern is the first major retrospective of the work of Danish artist Per Kirkeby (b. 1938). The show presents 146 works spanning four decades and bringing together his Pop-inspired paintings from the 1960s with early paintings on canvas and masonite from the late 1970s as well as a group of blackboard works, bronze sculptures, and rarely-seen works on paper as well as a selection of the artist’s writings.
Exhibition Page
Northern Exposure [The Guardian]
Video: Per Kirkeby Exhibition at Tate Modern [The Telegraph]
In Pictures: Per Kirkeby [BBC]
First Major Survey in the UK of the Work of the Danish Artist Per Kirkeby at Tate Modern [ArtDaily]
Flight into Egypt (1996) by Per Kirkeby, via The Guardian
Kirkeby explores a variety of terrains including nature, art history, and popular culture and uses an almost scientific rigor when examining his subjects recalling his university training as a geologist. Kirkeby gained international recognition in the early 1980s alongside what has been termed a ‘new’ European painting or Neo-Expressionism involving artists such as Georg Baselitz and A.R. Penck. His paintings, like his sculptures, are gestural, vigorous and exude great expression.
Untitled (1984) by Per Kirkeby via The Guardian
The exhibition begins with an exploration of a recurring motif in Kirkeby’s work: the hut. As the most basic form of domestic architecture, it signals the importance of the natural world as the most continous source of inspiration for Kirkeby. The artist’s Pop-inspired paintings on masonite from the 1960s are another feature of the exhibition and have rarely been seen outside of his native Denmark. A room is also dedicated to the artist’s writing and reveals his reflections on his own art and that of other artists.
Wald-Variation II (1989) by Per Kirkeby, via The Guardian
Per Kirkeby was born in 1938. He completed a Masters degree in arctic geology at the University of Copenhagen in 1964 before becoming involved with Copenhagen’s radical Experimental Art School and international Fluxus. His artistic practice includes painting, drawing, work in various print-media, sculpture-both in bronze and brick and writing and film. Kirkeby’s works are represented in many public collections including Tate Modern in London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Portugalia (2008) by Per Kirkeby, via Art Knowledge News
