Press release
From November 6, 1998 to January 9, 1999, Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne is showing new paintings by Per Kirkeby.
After a series of internationally successful museum exhibitions in Austria, France, Great Britain, Denmark and Germany this year, 15 paintings by Per Kirkeby are now being presented in Cologne, all of which were created in 1998 and are being shown to the public for the first time.
These works represent in concentrated form the most recent creative period of the artist, which is characterized by an almost precious colorfulness and gestural intensity.
Three medium-format works measuring 200 x 130 cm, 200 x 150 cm, and 200 x 160 cm show interlocking color fields in golden yellow, blue, and dark red that evoke memories of Byzantine art.
In 6 smaller formats with the dimensions 115 x 95 cm, which bear the title "Rest-Landschaft", determine line compositions, whose coloring suggests autumn and winter colors. Other works combine these two tendencies and give impetus to go on a journey of discovery. As in many of Kirkeby's paintings, the theme of landscape is also present in his most recent works, but the artist is increasingly relegating the motif to the background. The aspect of the landscape is now the transformation, the continuous process that Kirkeby reveals in the picture by means of color contrasts and different directions of movement.
Lars Morell, who wrote the catalog text for the exhibition, speaks of the "great flow" in Kirkeby's art, which has reached its climax in the most recent pictures and refers to the movement in the individual picture and that between the pictures. According to Morell, the "flow" also refers to "the suspension of the subjective and a surrender to the great transformation.
This is shown in an exemplary way in the 15 color illustrations in the catalog published on the occasion of the exhibition.
