JOHN KØRNER

Following Intercontinental Super Fruits, John Kørner’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States (on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit from November 2021 until January 2022), this exhibition builds on themes of consumerism, globalisation and networks of distribution and exchange. Cosmopolitan Super Fruits takes as a starting point the idea of the corner shop, a place of supply and consumption familiar to us all. Always treating content with various degrees of abstraction and metaphor, in this body of work Kørner brings into focus modes of display (fruit on the tree and vine, and picked, packaged and on the shelf) and the movement of foodstuffs as they collide with aspects of contemporary politics and ecological thought in the context of ever-evolving concepts of the local, regional, national and global.

Nourishment–the life-enhancing properties of fruit and the visual and intellectual sustenance of art–is a connecting theme. So too is seduction–fruit’s ingenious ways of drawing attention to itself in order to disseminate its seed, versus the artist’s deployment of brushmark and colour to carry, Trojan horse-like, a barrage of ideas. In this regard fruit, a traditional subject in art history and a longstanding motif in Kørner’s art, is deployed to raise questions that place the viewer/consumer squarely at the centre.

About the artist

Born in Århus, Denmark in 1967, John Kørner lives and works in Copenhagen.John Kørner: Intercontinental Super Fruits, the first solo museum exhibition of Kørner’s work in the United States, was recently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, USA (18 November 2021–30 January 2022). His work was also recently on view at Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark, in Work it Out, a group exhibition addressing the working life of the future (24 September 2021–16 January 2022).

Previously, Kørner has had solo exhibitions at institutional venues including Konsthall 16/Riksidrottsmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden (2019); Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium (2018); Helsinki Contemporary, Helsinki, Finland (2018); Museum Emma, Espoo, Finland (2018); Brandts, Odense, Denmark (2016); Museum Belvedere, Oranjewoud, Netherlands (2016); Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark (2003, 2013); The Workers’ Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark (2011); ARoS Århus Kunstmuseum, Denmark (2006) and Moderna Museet, Sweden (2005).