Per Kirkeby
27 Feb - 25 Oct 2015
Per Kirkeby
Bricks: Sculpture and Architecture
Exhibition view KUB Collection Showcase
Photo: Markus Tretter
© Kunsthaus Bregenz
Bricks: Sculpture and Architecture
Exhibition view KUB Collection Showcase
Photo: Markus Tretter
© Kunsthaus Bregenz
PER KIRKEBY
Bricks: Sculpture and Architecture
27 February – 25 October 2015
Per Kirkeby (*1938 in Copenhagen) is internationally the most important representative of contemporary Scandinavian art. In 1962 the aspiring geologist was accepted at the Experimental Art School in Copenhagen where he developed a pictorial language, revolving round metamorphosis in nature, a multifaceted approach in the most differing of artistic media. Kirkeby has always emphasized that he regards himself to be a painter. It is against this background that his three-dimensional work – bronze casts, in addition to his famous brick sculptures that he has been creating since the early 1980s – should be considered. Per Kirkeby’s comprehensive education in, and knowledge of, historical forms of building, as well as his numerous research trips both inside and outside Europe are echoed in his brick sculptures. The brick works, which had an architectural character from the very beginning, began developing from the end of the 1980s onwards away from sculpture towards architecture, providing solutions to fundamental questions around architecture, to the relationship of the creative with the functional, and the everyday with the disturbing. His departure from basic additive forms, simple grids and ornamentation, such as nine squares and the meander, results in complex and mysterious works which in addition to rational structures, also display »metaphysical shadows«.
In 1997 a large Per Kirkeby solo exhibition took place at Kunsthaus Bregenz, and a comprehensive catalogue raisonné of the brick sculptures and architecture was published. During preparations for the exhibition and publication Per Kirkeby arranged for a gift of over 200 original large-scale drawings to the Kunsthaus, consequently today the archive of Kunsthaus Bregenz possesses the most important collection of Kirkeby’s architectonic output.
The exhibition will display the large-format preparatory drawings in ink and red chalk for Per Kirkeby’s brick sculptures along with small-scale sketches, sketchbooks, and photographs. Furthermore over a hundred of Per Kirkeby’s books will be on show which Kunsthaus Bregenz also received as a gift. These are valuable, and today much sought after, small editions, revealing the artist as author, art theorist and educator.
Bricks: Sculpture and Architecture
27 February – 25 October 2015
Per Kirkeby (*1938 in Copenhagen) is internationally the most important representative of contemporary Scandinavian art. In 1962 the aspiring geologist was accepted at the Experimental Art School in Copenhagen where he developed a pictorial language, revolving round metamorphosis in nature, a multifaceted approach in the most differing of artistic media. Kirkeby has always emphasized that he regards himself to be a painter. It is against this background that his three-dimensional work – bronze casts, in addition to his famous brick sculptures that he has been creating since the early 1980s – should be considered. Per Kirkeby’s comprehensive education in, and knowledge of, historical forms of building, as well as his numerous research trips both inside and outside Europe are echoed in his brick sculptures. The brick works, which had an architectural character from the very beginning, began developing from the end of the 1980s onwards away from sculpture towards architecture, providing solutions to fundamental questions around architecture, to the relationship of the creative with the functional, and the everyday with the disturbing. His departure from basic additive forms, simple grids and ornamentation, such as nine squares and the meander, results in complex and mysterious works which in addition to rational structures, also display »metaphysical shadows«.
In 1997 a large Per Kirkeby solo exhibition took place at Kunsthaus Bregenz, and a comprehensive catalogue raisonné of the brick sculptures and architecture was published. During preparations for the exhibition and publication Per Kirkeby arranged for a gift of over 200 original large-scale drawings to the Kunsthaus, consequently today the archive of Kunsthaus Bregenz possesses the most important collection of Kirkeby’s architectonic output.
The exhibition will display the large-format preparatory drawings in ink and red chalk for Per Kirkeby’s brick sculptures along with small-scale sketches, sketchbooks, and photographs. Furthermore over a hundred of Per Kirkeby’s books will be on show which Kunsthaus Bregenz also received as a gift. These are valuable, and today much sought after, small editions, revealing the artist as author, art theorist and educator.