PER KIRKEBY

In the 1980s as Kirkeby’s international fame grew, he hit an artistic crisis and leaned towards historic Northern European painting as a way out. In the monumental masterpiece Fram from 1983, on loan to the exhibition from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, Kirkeby combines compositional elements from two famous Northern European paintings, Caspar David Friedrich’s “The Sea of Ice” from 1823-24 and a 17th century Dutch still life by Willem Claesz Heda. Motifs from these two paintings guide Kirkeby’s painting process, which is heightened by the artist’s sensations after reading the reports of the Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, whose ship was named ‘Fram’ which translates to ‘forward’ or ‘advance’ in Nordic languages.

Kirkeby wrote about Friedrich as ‘the perfect painter of theatrical scenery. The whole picture is divided up into decorations in very close proximity and very close to the backcloth: the sky, the mountains, the rainbow, the mist. Each plane completely unfolded in terms of the feel of the colour. There is so little room in the world. The horizon is close, not far away. The world is not very big. You can contain it in its entirety inside your head.’ Kirkeby’s description of the formal qualities of Friedrich’s paintings is strikingly similar to Dutch still life painting, in which objects are close to the foreground and immense religious and philosophical themes are conveyed through inanimate items in domestic spaces.

Reliance on motifs garnered from the history of Northern European painting pulled Kirkeby out of his artistic crisis in 1980s and defined his art over the ensuing decades. In 1986, American art critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote that Kirkeby, ‘makes a whole art, an art authentic to the little world it comes from and equal to the big world it enters.’

P__er Kirkeby: Natures Mortes features Fram as well as several paintings from 2005 to 2012 that combine Caspar David Friedrich’s theatrical scenery, fields of color, and close horizon line with distinctive motifs derived from Willem Claesz Heda’s still life painting.

Works by Per Kirkeby are found in museum collections worldwide including Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Museum of Modern Art, New York, among many others. Important solo museum exhibitions include Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Museum Jorn, Silkeborg; the Beaux-Arts de Paris; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; Tate Modern, London; IVAM Centre del Carme, Valencia; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Whitechapel Gallery, London; and Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. In 2023, two important exhibitions of Kirkeby’s works were held at ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Ishøj and Museo Tamayo in Mexico City.

Per Kirkeby: Natures Mortes opens to the public on 7 February with a private view on 6 February from 6-8pm. The exhibition will remain on view through 10 May. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 6pm.