Press release
„I feel that I’m seeing the world as it really is, and this is what I try to paint.“ (Per Kirkeby)
Galerie Michael Werner is pleased to announce an exhibition of drawings by the artist Per Kirkeby (b. 1938, Cophenhagen). The exhibition features thirty works on paper from between 2008 and 2011 as well as one blackboard from 2014, all of which will be shown to the public for the first time.
“Once,” recounts Per Kirkeby (who trained academically as a geologist), “I saw some ochre-coloured stones we had broken into pieces some days before, and I painted them not in ochre but in bluish-violet. […] Everyone protested, stating that the real colour of the stones was ochre. This is just to give a very simple example of what we adhere to, what we think. […] Sometimes, at very special moments I feel that I’m seeing the world as it really is, and this is what I try to paint.” Though it might appear to the viewer as if the artist has turned his back on realistic depiction, it is actually the means of abstraction with which the artist shows his personal perception of reality. Recent works from the Læsø series catch the viewer with stylistic elements which refuse natural reality. (Læsø, the Danish island, has been the repeated subject of the artist’s painting, sculptures and drawings since the 1980s.) Though single geological formations and stumps can be made out, one can see radial hatchings, vertical and horizontal brush strokes, and unsteady coloured areas with bright colours on white handmade paper. The colour application is structured by an easy flow which conveys a certain movement to the surface. Only rarely is the paper completely covered with colour.
Per Kirkeby also waives any natural depiction of historic events such as the martyrdom of the so-called Martyrs of Compiègne, to whom the series Dialogues des Carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites, 2008/2010) is dedicated. The folios refer to an opera of the same name from the year 1956, which tells the story of the execution of sixteen Carmelites by the guillotine during the French Revolution in July 1794. “The permission is granted to release the painting from its all-too-synthetic narration”, explains the artist in his 2012 abstract depiction of narrative complexes, which also in his gouaches, is transposed into abstract colour formations.
Per Kirkeby has been the subject of numerous major exhibitions worldwide: Museum Ludwig, Köln (1987), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek (1990), St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis (1996), Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (1998), Tate Modern, London (2009), Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf (2009), Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brüssel (2012), The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2012), Pinakothek der Moderne, München (2014). He was also invited to participate at documenta VII, Kassel (1987) and documenta X, Kassel (1992) and at the Venice Biennial (1993). Furthermore, Per Kirkeby was honoured in 2003 with the Herbert-Boeckl-Preis for his lifetime achievement by the “Verein der Freunde des Rupertinums” and in 2011 he was nominated Honorary Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
The exhibition opens at Galerie Michael Werner in Märkisch Wilmersdorf 10 November 2014 and remains on view through 16 January 2015. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10am to 5pm. Booking in advance is recommended by phone +49 (0)33731 32010 or email galeriewerner@michaelwerner.de.