Claus Carstensen
28 May - 26 Jun 2011
CLAUS CARSTENSEN
Silent Room, Silver Room
28 May - 26 June, 2011
Claus Carstensen has a strong historical and political awareness that confronts and challenges the viewer with the sheer force of strokes, color and composition – and with the often violent, unpleasant and unforgiven subject matters.
Claus Carstensen inquires into consciousness, will and pleasure.
Carstensen's newest paintings began as collages, made up of drawings, found leaflets, and a host of appropriated images. In what is now becoming his trademark manner, Carstensen indiscriminately mixes media, processes, tools, and techniques to produce an imagery that is at the same time abstract and concrete, surreal and literal. Just as Carstensen forces traditional ideas of art-making to the edge and beyond, he compels viewers to extend their ways of seeing and thinking well past conventional boundaries of meaning and experience.
A poet as well as a visual artist, Carstensen’s first exhibitions date from 1979 and include showings throughout Europe, as well as in Australia, the United States, South Africa, Canada and Brazil. Over his career, Claus has represented Denmark at the Sydney Biennale in 1992, the Sao Paolo Biennale in 1994, and the Venice Biennale in 1997.
Claus Carstensen taught as a professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1993-2002.
Silent Room, Silver Room
28 May - 26 June, 2011
Claus Carstensen has a strong historical and political awareness that confronts and challenges the viewer with the sheer force of strokes, color and composition – and with the often violent, unpleasant and unforgiven subject matters.
Claus Carstensen inquires into consciousness, will and pleasure.
Carstensen's newest paintings began as collages, made up of drawings, found leaflets, and a host of appropriated images. In what is now becoming his trademark manner, Carstensen indiscriminately mixes media, processes, tools, and techniques to produce an imagery that is at the same time abstract and concrete, surreal and literal. Just as Carstensen forces traditional ideas of art-making to the edge and beyond, he compels viewers to extend their ways of seeing and thinking well past conventional boundaries of meaning and experience.
A poet as well as a visual artist, Carstensen’s first exhibitions date from 1979 and include showings throughout Europe, as well as in Australia, the United States, South Africa, Canada and Brazil. Over his career, Claus has represented Denmark at the Sydney Biennale in 1992, the Sao Paolo Biennale in 1994, and the Venice Biennale in 1997.
Claus Carstensen taught as a professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1993-2002.