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Per Kirkeby Hommage à Per Kirkeby
Hommage à Per Kirkeby
Med Per Kirkebys nylige bortgang mistede vi den kunstner
og ven, som var den direkte årsag til, at Galleri Bo Bjerg
gaard blev etableret tilbage i 1999. I løbet af de næsten 20 år,
der er gået siden, har Per været en uophørlig inspirations
kilde og referencepunkt for alt det, vi arbejder med og for.
Hans store interesse for kultur i bred forstand og mest
af alt for billedkunst gjorde ham til en særdeles berigende
person at tale med. Men det var ikke blot igennem det tal
te sprog, han berigede os. Hans mange bøger både om
eksistentielle vilkår for at skabe kunst, om andre kunstner
skaber og hans lyrik, er med til at gøre os klogere på til
værelsen generelt og ikke mindst klogere på Per Kirkeby.
Per Kirkeby var først og fremmest billedkunstner, og deraf
fulgte så det mest betydningfulde danske kunsterskab, der
er skabt og afsluttet siden Asger Jorn.
Pers værk er mangefacetteret og hans enestående evne
til billedkunstnerisk at udtrykke sig gennem mange forskel
lige medier er legendarisk. En stor del af hans vokabularium
blev allerede undfanget i løbet af 1960’erne, men fortsatte
sin udvikling helt til 2013, hvor sygdommene strammede sit
greb om Per.
Galleriets udstilling er sammensat af udvalgte værker inden
for de medier, som Per valgte at inddrage i sin kunstneriske
praksis. Vi har for første gang valgt at inddrage hele galle
riet til en udstilling, og der er alligevel ikke plads nok til alle
Pers greb, men hovedparten bliver vist: masonitter, store
kultegninger, tavler, bronzemodeller, serigrafier, grønlands
akvareller, gouacher, bronzeskulpturer og ikke mindst
maleri.
Per har efterladt os et værk, hvis betydning taler for sig selv,
kom og mød det.
Morten Korsgaard, Britt og Bo Bjerggaard
Homage to Per Kirkeby
With the recent passing of Per Kirkeby, we lost the
artist and friend who was the direct reason for found
ing Galleri Bo Bjerggaard back in 1999. Over the next
nearly 20 years, Per never ceased being a source of
inspiration and a reference point for all the things we
work with and for.
His wideranging interest in culture, and in visual
art above all, made him a highly enlightening person
to talk with. But he enlightened us not only through
the spoken word. His poetry and his many books
on existential issues of artmaking and other artists’
work make us smarter about life – and about Per
Kirkeby. An artist first of all, Per produced the most
important body of work by a Danish artist since
Asger Jorn.
Per’s work is multifacetted. His ability to express
himself in many different media is legendary. While
a large part of his vocabulary was conceived back
in the 1960s, it continued to evolve all the way up
to 2013, when his illness tightened its grip on him.
This exhibition showcases selected works in most
of the media Per incorporated into his art. For the
first time ever, we are using the whole gallery for
an exhibition, and still there is not room to accom
modate all of Per’s practices, though most will be
represented: masonites, large charcoal drawings,
blackboards, bronze models, silkscreens, watercol
ours of Greenland, gouaches, bronze sculptures
and, not least, paintings.
Per left us a body of work whose importance speaks
for itself. Come and see.
Morten Korsgaard, Britt and Bo Bjerggaard
Untitled, 2005
[PKI05029]
Borte med blæsten
Indledning
Hvordan skrive om Per Kirkeby? Han har som ingen anden dansk kunstner kontinuerligt
skrevet, kommenteret og fortolket eget værk. Alene dette gør arbejdet uden sidestyk
ke i dansk og europæisk kunsthistorie. Det kan være svært at se skoven for bar’ Per
Kirkeby.
Jeg har fulgt Kirkebys arbejde i henved 30 år og har en betydelig del af hans artist
books, essays og digte. Jeg har rejst rundt og set omtrent alle murstensskulpturerne
på det europæiske kontinent og måske har intet kunstværk betydet mere for mig end
monumentet for Niels Bohr i Universitetsparken, som stod fast, da alt andet sejlede.
Hvordan undgå blot at gentage, hvad han selv og andre allerede har skrevet?. Der må
eksistere hundredvis af katalogforord og læg dertil monografierne, anmeldelserne og
afhandlinger.
Jeg forsøger mig med, hvad man kunne kalde den hypnagogiske metode, lægger mig
på sofaen med den olivengrønne pude under nakken, uden et nøglebundt i hånden, men
med en arm over ansigtet. Jeg vil se på Per Kirkebys værk over nethinden under lukke
de øjne som et slags efterbillede.
Det første som viser sig fra denne øvelses kornede punkttåge, er erindringen om et sort
hvidt fotografi fra Haderslev Museum først i 1970’erne, fra en af de såkaldte Museums
udstillinger, hvor Kirkeby ikke udstillede egne billeder, men fundne ting, et eksempel ba
nale malerier fundet på det lokalhistoriske museums magasin og ophængt på væggene
tilsyneladende lidt tilfældigt.
I midten af rummet, husker jeg, at der på fotografiet stod to montrer, en med alminde
ligt service lånt hos en lokal isenkræmmer arrangeret som et arkæologisk fund, og i den
næste montre lå indkøbt bagerbrød fra Haderslev bageri formmuterende fra rosen brød
over rosinbolle og kringle frem til kanelsnegl.
Så ankommer over det indre syn dokumenterende fotografier af udstillingen Karlssons
klister II fra John Hunovs Daner Galleri i Kronprinsessegade i 1975, med ituslåede ting
og sager. I en vindueskarm ligger der en knækket pibe og i et hjørne står en taburet
med ødelagte ben. Disse ramponerede og udtjente ting som skyller op om mennesker.
Jeg besøgte engang Hunov i herskabslejligheden på Frederiksberg. Jeg kan huske, at
der i stuen hang en Manzoni achrome, der lignede en lammesky i bomuld, gul af nikotin.
Nær ved hang Kirkebys ruinøse maleri Der zusammengebrochene Linné fra 1972, som
et opløst centrifugeret herbarium, med pålimede og delvist forsvundne tørrede blade
og med imiterede mursten. Indvendigt på døren i arbejdsværelset hang Oluf Hartmanns
Diogenes og hang der ikke til venstre for døren nogle af Kirkebys collager til Rhodos
udgaven af Henry Thoreaus Walden. Livet i skovene fra 1972?
Kirkebys Thoreauillustrationer består af collager med påklistrede blade, i hånden irreelt
revnede fotografier, fæstnet til papiret med garnsyninger, og hans egne sort hvide eks
peditionsfotografier fra den grønlandske indlandsis, og fra den adstadige jyske provins
til Yucatanhalvøen i Mexico og Guatemalas jungle. Jeg kan dårligt tænke på en mere
original illustrationskunst end disse arbejder, der skaber et tidsmæssigt og topografisk
forskudt plan i forhold til handlingen omkring vandhullet i Concord, Massachusetts.
Da Kirkeby, fotografen Teit Jørgensen og forfatteren Ib Michael i begyndelsen af 1971
rejser til Yucatan i Mexico og derpå til Guatemala, bruger Kirkeby undervejs ekspediti
onstegneren Frederick Catherwood (17991854) som alter ego i en række dagbogs
lignende indføringer udgivet i bogen Hændelser på rejsen.
I midten af det 19. århundrede genopdagede tegneren Frederick Catherwood maya
kulturen sammen med forfatteren J. L. Stephens og sammen udgav de blandt andet
tobindsværket Incidents of Travel in Yucatan i 1841. Jeg tænker på Catherwoods teg
ninger af mayatemplerne, som illustrerer bogen, deres perspektivløse flade frontalitet.
Jeg ser for mig Kirkebys ruintegninger fra rejsen til mayalandet, deres i pen over blyant
optrukne skraveringer, deres karakterfulde og rørende håbløshed, men også deres
klare affinitet til Catherwood.
I 1969 skrev den amerikanske kunstner Robert Smithson et vigtigt essay fra en to ugers
rejse i Mexico og Guatemala publiceret i Artforum med titlen Incidents of Mirror-Travel
in the Yucatan, der netop henviser til Stephens og Catherwoods bog. Jeg kan huske
indledningen i Smithsons essay om den apatisk hvilende horisont, han i bil sammen med
hustru og kunsthandler hele tiden krydser, og som alligevel forbliver fjern, på sin vis
som Zenons paradoks.
Smithsons betydning for miljøet i og omkring EksSkolen kan ikke undervurderes, og
det er svært at forestille sig, at Kirkeby ikke skulle have kendt essayet. Jeg spekulerer
på, om selve rejsemålet og interessen for Catherwood er afledt af Smithsons essay?
Jeg fornemmer i Kirkebys arbejde en livslang samtale med Smithsons værk og hans
brug af begrebet entropi. Er for eksempel Der zusammengebrochene Linné ikke netop
beslægtet med Smithsons tidlige collage Eye of Blood, spørger jeg mig selv.
Rejsen til Mellemamerika satte sig varige spor i Kirkebys arbejde i såvel malerier, titler
og murstensarkitektur. Man ser påvirkningen i enkelte af de overmalinger af tromme
salsmalerier, som Kirkeby arbejdede med sidst i 1970’erne og som var Hunovs ide.
Lysende orange fatamorganaer som rejser sig som luftslotte og tankebygninger, som
lys fra den anden side, det banales forløste metafysik.
Jeg sammenholder i tanken Kirkebys overmalinger med Jorns modifikationer og nye
defigurationer. Tænker så på provinssensibiliteten i Kirkebys Jornfilm med dens lang
somme tableaulignende sort hvide kameraføring. Vi ser et vejtræ i Vestjylland ude ved
Aulum, jernbaneoverskæringen i Silkeborg, kameraets dvælen ved en gade i byen med
små kvadratiske huse som i brætspillet Matador. Kirkeby lader kameraet bevæge sig
rundt i Jorns næsten deliriske kunst, som set igennem vand. Jorns tegninger er vædet
i stemningen fra Johannes V. Jensens myter og i Jornfilmen tilsat Morten Grunwalds
voice over og Jorn og Dubuffets skramlende antimusik.
Jorn sagde om de kataloger, han udgav til udstillingerne af international kunst på det
museum, han lod oprette først i 1960’erne på en nedlagt skole i Hostrupsgade i Silke
borg, at de var nødt til at blive trykt i endog meget store oplag for at nå ud til de få, som
var interesserede. Jeg tror, at det samme gælder for Kirkebys bøger, ideelle ved at
væ re trykt i præcist alt for store oplag i forhold til interessen. I april 1990 købte jeg hos
en boghandlerkæde i provinsen Per Kirkebys bog Naturens blyant, der var stillet ud på
gaden i en tilbudskasse. Gennem den bog kom jeg ind i værket ad bagdøren, bag om
malerierne direkte ind i teksternes skurrende grødis.
Jeg forestiller mig omslagets collage. Over kalkerpapirets hvidligt slørende gus står for
fatterens næsten udvaskede grøntblødende navnetræk. Bag irgrøn tang ligger bagerst
i billedgrunden en forsvindende, knapt aflæselig subtekst. Måske kan Kirkebys malerier
forstås igennem dette omslag, tænker jeg så.
Om end malerierne er tavse, giver de alligevel en fornemmelse af bestanddele fra
Kirke bys dagbøger, digte og essays, indkapslet i maleriernes dyb, indlejret i farven.
For mit indre blik ser jeg de opspartlede farvemasser sat i bevægelse, det er ikke et
specielt maleri, jeg tænker på, måske mere værket som sådan, ser foldede fjeldvægge
som tankerækker og rullende terrasser af marint ler. Jeg ser en såkaldt taluskegle
pludseligt opstå som en timeglaslignende form af porøst materiale.
Jeg tænker på loven om kontinentaldrift: at det sammenføjede driver umærkeligt fra
hinanden over tid. Billederne er aflejringssteder, vragrester, motivdele og figurer, der
kommer til syne eller forsvinder mellem forkastninger og sedimentlag, og indlejret i den
dybe tids geologiske processer findes kunsthistorien, som brud, skred og eroderinger.
I Kirkebys billeder findes Delacroix og lidt af Weies heroiske kompositioner udført imel
lem indlæggelserne, og her findes rester af Jerichaus store stil med tandbyld og en ned
arvet depression. Jeg forestiller mig et maleri af Elof Risebye fra 1920 af liggende model,
som ligner en sen Kirkeby, men også det glider væk nu og forsvinder over i en næsten
gennemsigtig hest af Baldung Grien i min forestillede geomorfiske proces. Derpå viser
sig nu lidt tektonik måske hentet på ikonmuseet i Recklinghausen og under lukkede
øjne ser jeg, hvordan drivtømmer sejler forbi over lærredets brusende hav af tid, ser
udgåede træer, afhuggede træstubbe, badet i ismørke og afgrundsskygger.
Det indre og det ydre flyder sammen. Som digteren Novalis søger Kirkeby i kunsten
igennem et slør af orden at lade kaos tindre. Jeg tænker på romantikken. Bortvendt fra
nutiden kaster omvendte profeter deres seerblikke ned i fortiden, som Heinrich Heine
nedladende sagde om romantiske kunstnere. Jeg tænker på Kirkebys ekstatiske com
putergenererede farvemanipulationer til landskaberne, der ligger som kapitelinddelinger
i Lars von Triers film Breaking the Waves og forsøger at finde dem på YouTube. De er
forløst romantik som var det malerier af Hudson River School tilsat et fænomenalt
soundtrack.
Nu klikkende regn på ruden, jeg lytter til regnen udenfor som en slags minimalmusik i
brudt rytme.
Jeg forestiller mig, hvordan det drypper fra gule blade i Danmarks ældste by. Hvordan
der samler sig lidt regnvand i fordybningen på den nådesløst afskårne træstub, formet i
sort bronze, der med tiden vil irre til erindring om 1700tals digteren Ambrosius Stub ved
Sct. Catharinæ Kirken helt ovre i Ribe, sat som en påmindelse med ufravigelig alvor om
livets timelighed og om, at ikke meget bliver tilbage.
Og jeg ser for mig, hvordan bronzeirring og fugt siver ned i soklerne af gule mursten fra
skulpturerne, der står ventende foran Hovedbiblioteket i Hellerup, sortblå som bjergtin
der i silhuet mod den hvide murstensvæg som baggrund. Det er som at træde ind på
den forside af poesitidsskriftet HVEDEKORN, som Kirkeby lavede som et fællesarbejde
med Poul Gernes i 1967. Biblioteksudsmykningen peger imod de højeste tinder, et bib
liotek fuld af poesi: her finder du den bog, du leder efter, og ved siden af den en bog
som leder efter dig.
Forestiller mig hvide kalkudsondringer i Kirkebys passageværk i mursten til Humlebæk
Station, hvis indgange er dimensioneret efter de 15 mursten brede buestik over døren
til stationsforstanderens rødstenshus, der ligger ved siden af. Kirkebys skulptur forlener
nordbanestationens almindelighed med en mystisk dimension. Det er som at ankomme
til et af de Chiricos metafysiske malerier.
Det er ikke stakittet rundt om Clemmensens kirke på Forhåbningsholms Allé, som
ses på Kirkebys stakitbilleder, det ser anderledes ud. Forlægget til Kirkebys stakit fin
des i en af de af Bo Bjerggaard udgivne feltbøger, på en tegning af Storm P. Digressivt
tænker jeg på Storm Petersens milde melankoli og en tegning af en vagabond med en
cocktailpølse i bur og skraveringerne over de stynede piletræer i baggrunden. Stakit
tet ses også på et af guldaldermaleren Købkes vemodige afskedsbilleder med foræl
drenes nu nedlagte ejendom på Blegdamsvej, som findes på Statens Museum for
Kunst.
Før fraflytningen i 1845 og for at fastholde det på papir, maler Købke det hjørne af
huset, hvor indgangen til malestuen lå. Og i haven maler han stakittet imod Sortedams
søen. For Købke er stakittet demarkationslinjen til kaos og det samme, forestiller jeg
mig, gælder for Kirkeby.
Per Kirkeby skriver et sted, vist i digtsamlingen Den fortsatte tekst, at Købkes maleri
Efterårsmorgen ved Sortedamssøen ikke interesserer ham ved at minde om Friedrich
og den slags overskuelige sager, men ved sine mindelser frem i tiden til Carl Fredrik
Hills Syster Anna, en nærmest identisk figur. Sådan husker jeg det skrevet. Hills billede
af søsteren frarøvet sin skygge, som ligger tabt bag hende. Jeg forestiller mig Kirkebys
malerier som de løsrevne skyggers fest.
Hertil og ikke længere nåede jeg i min halvvejs søvninducerede rejse. I punktform skrev
jeg ovenstående i en notesbog, som jeg i dag den tiende maj igen tog frem. I går aftes
fik jeg meddelelsen om, at Per Kirkeby var afgået ved døden.
Hvad der skulle have været katalogforordet til en 80 års fødselsdagsudstilling, bliver
nu i stedet en mindeudstilling over et afrundet, rigt facetteret og bemærkelsesværdigt
virke. Tiden vil give malerierne en vidunderlig stoflig virkning, som Salto skriver det om
Jens Adolf Jerichaus malerier i sit mindeord i tidsskriftet Klingen i oktober 1917. Skyg
gerne vil fortsat ligge i murstensskulpturernes halvanden stens fordybninger og luften
vil i årtierne fremover patinere stenene med stadig større skønhed.
Og i Ribe vil der igen til efteråret ligge gule blade og lidt regnvand i monumentet for
Ambrosius Stub, som med tiden vil irre turkisgrønt og umærkeligt gro sammen med sit
sted.
Det meste blæser bort, men dele af Kirkebys værk vil blive stående og skabe større
rum i tilværelsen for den, som lærer det at kende.
Christian Vind
Stele, 1997
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Leiser Wellenschlag Grün, 2005
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Inventory X, 2002
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Inventory IX, 2002
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Inventory XI, 2002
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Model til Lyon, 1987
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Model, 1989
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Port / Tor, 1988
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Model, 1996
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Gone with the Wind
Introduction
How do you write about Per Kirkeby? Like no other Danish artist, Kirkeby was always
writing about his own work, commenting on and interpreting it. For that reason alone,
his work is without equal in Danish and European art history. Indeed, it can be hard to
see the forest for the Kirkeby.
I have been following Kirkeby’s work for upwards of 30 years and own a considerable
number of his artist’s books, essays and poems. I have travelled around and viewed
almost all of his brick sculptures on the European continent. Perhaps no other artwork
has meant more to me than his monument to Niels Bohr in Universitetsparken, Copen
hagen, which held its ground when everything else was a wreck.
How do you avoid repeating what he and others have written? There must be hundreds
of catalogue forewords already, in addition to monographs, reviews and dissertations.
I’ll give it a shot. Using what might be called the hypnagogic method, I lie down on the
sofa with the olivegreen pillow under my head, but with no bunch of keys in my hand,
just an arm over my face. I want to look at Kirkeby’s work above my retina, behind
closed eyes, as a kind of afterimage.
The first memory to emerge from the grainy mist of this exercise is a black and white
photograph from Haderslev Museum in the early 1970s, from of one of the socalled
Museum Shows where Kirkeby exhibited not his own pictures but found objects, such
as hackneyed paintings unearthed in the storerooms of the local history museum and
hung on the walls seemingly at random. In the centre of a room, I remember, the photo
shows two glass cases, one with ordinary tableware borrowed from a local hardware
store and arranged like an archaeological find, the other with baked goods purchased
at Haderslev Bakery, in a range of shapes from raisin bread and raisin bun to pastry
pretzel and cinnamon roll.
Next in my mind’s eye appear documentary photos of an exhibition of broken objects,
Karlssons klister II (Karlsson’s Glue II), at John Hunov’s Daner Galleri in Kronprinsesse
gade, Copenhagen, a few years later. In a windowsill lies a broken pipe. In a corner
stands a stool with busted legs – all those damaged, decommissioned objects that
wash up around people.
I once visited Hunov in his palatial apartment in Frederiksberg. I remember he had in
his living room a Manzoni Achrome that looked like a nicotineyellowed cotton cloud.
Nearby hung Kirkeby’s ruinous 1972 painting Der zusammengebrochene Linné like a
decomposing, centrifuged herbarium with pastedon and partly missing dry leaves, and
imitation bricks. On the inside of the door to his study hung Oluf Hartmann’s Diogenes
and, to the left of the door, weren’t those some of Kirkeby’s collages for the Rhodos
edition of Thoreau’s 1854 Walden?
Kirkeby’s Thoreau illustrations are collages made from leaves, irregularly torn photo
graphs, stitched to the paper with yarn, and his own blackandwhite expedition photos
of the Greenland ice sheet, staid provincial Jutland, the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and
the Guatemalan jungle. I can scarcely imagine more original illustration art than these
works, which add a level of temporal and topographical dislocation to the events around
the pond in Concord, Massachusetts.
With the photographer Teit Jørgensen and the writer Ib Michael, Kirkeby travelled to
the Yucatán and Guatemala in early 1971. Taking the expedition artist Frederick Cather
wood (17991854) as his alter ego, Kirkeby made a series of journallike entries that
were later published as a book, Hændelser på rejsen (Incidents of Travel).
Catherwood, who had rediscovered the Mayan culture in the mid19th century, pub
lished the twovolume Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, with the writer J. L. Stephens, in
1841. I think about Catherwood’s drawings of Mayan temples that illustrated the book
and their flat, perspectiveless frontality.
I see before me Kirkeby’s drawings of ruins from his trip to Mayan country, their cross
hatching in pen and ink over pencil, their distinctive, touching hopelessness and their
clear affinity to Catherwood.
In 1969, the American artist Robert Smithson wrote an essay from his twoweek trip
to Mexico and Guatemala, which was published in Artforum under the title Incidents of
Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan, alluding to Stephens and Catherwood’s book. I remember
the opening of Smithson’s essay describing the apathetically resting horizon, which he,
in a car with his wife and his art dealer, was always crossing but which always remained
distant, as in Zeno’s paradox.
Smithson’s influence on the scene in and around EksSkolen can’t be underestimated,
and it’s hard to imagine that Kirkeby didn’t know his essay. I wonder whether his choice
of destination and his interest in Catherwood are derived from Smithson’s essay. I sense
in Kirkeby’s work a lifelong conversation with Smithson’s work and his use of the term
entropy. Isn’t, for example, Der zusammengebrochene Linné related to Smithson’s
early collage Eye of Blood? I ask myself.
The Central American trip left a lasting impression on Kirkeby’s work – in paintings, titles
and brick architecture. The influence is evident in some of his Overpaintings of kitschy
canvases in the late 1970s – Hunov’s idea – bright, orange mirages towering like castles
in the sky and thoughtbuildings, like light from the other side, embodied metaphysics
of banality.
In my mind, I liken Kirkeby’s Overpaintings to Asger Jorn’s Modifications and New
Defigurations. I think about the sensibility for the provincial that Kirkeby showed in his
Jorn film, with its slow, tableaulike, blackandwhite camerawork. We see a roadside
tree in West Jutland, outside Aulum. A railroad crossing in Silkeborg, the camera linger
ing on a street in town and its small, square Monopolylike houses. Kirkeby has the
camera pan across Jorn’s neardelirious art, as if seen through water. Jorn’s drawings
are steeped in the mood of Johannes V. Jensen’s myths, in the Jorn film added a
voiceover by Morten Grunwald and jangly antimusic by Jorn and Dubuffet.
Publishing catalogues for exhibitions of international art at the museum he set up in the
early 1960s, in a former school in Hostrupsgade, Silkeborg, Jorn said they should be
printed in very large editions in order to reach the few people who would be interested.
I think the same goes for Kirkeby’s books. The print runs should ideally be too big rela
tive to the interest. In 1990, I plucked Per Kirkeby’s book Naturens blyant (Nature’s
Pencil) from a discount bin outside a provincial chain bookstore. The book offered me
a backdoor into Kirkeby’s work, behind the paintings and straight into the grinding
brash ice of his writings.
I picture the book’s cover. Above the tracingpaper blur floats the writer’s almost
washedout, bleedinggreen signature. In the background, behind verdigris seaweed,
lies an obscured, barely legible subtext. Perhaps Kirkeby’s paintings can be under
stood through this cover, I find myself thinking.
While the paintings are silent, aspects of Kirkeby’s diaries, poems and essays are
encapsulated in their depths and embedded in their colours. In my mind’s eye, I see
animated impasto masses of colour. I’m not thinking about any one painting, but about
his work as a whole. I see folded mountainsides, like chains of thought, and rolling ter
races of marine clay. A socalled talus cone suddenly appears, shaped like an hour
glass shape in a porous material.
I think about the theory of continental drift: what is joined together imperceptibly drifts
apart over time. Kirkeby’s pictures are places of deposit, rubble, fragmented subject
matter and figures appearing or disappearing among faults and sedimentary layers.
Embedded in the geological processes of deep time, art history shows up in fractures,
landslides and erosions. In Kirkeby’s pictures are Delacroix and pieces of Edvard Weie’s
heroic compositions, executed in between hospital stays. There is residue of Jerichau’s
grand style, with tooth abscess and hereditary depression. I picture a 1920 painting of
a reclining model by Elof Risebye that looks like a late Kirkeby, before that, too, in my
imaginary geomorphic process fades into an almost transparent horse by Baldung
Grien. A bit of tectonics appears next, sourced perhaps from the museum of icons in
Recklinghausen. Behind closed eyes, I see driftwood floating by across the canvas’s
roaring sea of time and erstwhile trees, choppedoff stumps, bathed in icy darkness
and abyssal shadow.
The inner and the outer run together. Like the poet Novalis, Kirkeby in his art strives
to make chaos shine through a veil of order. I think about Romanticism. Turning their
backs on their own time, converted prophets cast their seer’s gazes into the past, as
Heinrich Heine condescendingly wrote about Romantic artists. I think about Kirkeby’s
ecstatic computergenerated colour manipulations for the landscape chapter headings
of Lars von Trier’s film Breaking the Waves, and try to find them on YouTube. They are
Romanticism incarnated, like Hudson River School paintings with a killer soundtrack.
Now rain clicks on my window. I listen to the rain outside like it’s a kind of minimalist
music with a broken beat. I imagine it dripping from yellow leaves in Denmark’s oldest
city, rainwater collecting in the hollow of the pitilessly amputated tree stump cast in
black bronze that will turn verdigris over time, in memory of the 18thcentury poet
Ambrosius Stub, at St. Catherine’s Church out in Ribe, as an inexorably grave reminder
of the temporality of life and how little is left behind.
And I see before my minds’ eye verdigris and dampness seep into the yellowbrick
pedestals from the sculptures outside Gentofte Main Library, black and blue, silhouetted
like mountaintops against their white brickwall backdrop. It is like entering the cover of
the poetry journal HVEDEKORN that Kirkeby made in collaboration with Poul Gernes in
1967. The library pieces point to the highest peaks, a library full of poetry: there, you’ll
find the book you’re looking for, and next to it a book that’s looking for you.
I picture white lime secretions inside Kirkeby’s brick passage work for Humlebæk Sta
tion, its entrances dimensioned to the 15brickwide relieving arch over the door of the
station master’s redbrick house alongside of it. Kirkeby’s sculpture lends the com
monplace station a mystical dimension that is like arriving at a metaphysical painting by
de Chirico.
The fence around Clemmensen’s church on Forhåbningsholms Allé is not the one in
Kirkeby’s fence pictures. It looks different. The model for Kirkeby’s fence can be found
in a field book published by Bo Bjerggaard, specifically in a drawing by Robert Storm
Petersen. Digressively, I consider Storm P.’s gentle melancholy and his cartoon of a
tramp with a cocktail sausage in a birdcage and the crosshatching on pollarded wil
lows in the background. The same fence appears in a plaintive, valedictory painting at
the National Gallery in Copenhagen by the Danish Golden Age artist Christen Købke of
his parents’ longsince demolished house on Blegdamsvej.
To commit it to paper before moving out in 1845, Købke painted the corner of the
house where the entrance to the studio was and the garden with the fence facing Lake
Sortedam. For Købke, the fence is the demarcation line on chaos. The same, I imagine,
is true for Kirkeby.
Kirkeby once wrote, I think in his poetry collection Den fortsatte tekst (The Continued
Text), that Købke’s painting Autumn Morning on Lake Sortedam is interesting to him
not because it recalls Friedrich and other manageable concerns, but because of its
resemblance to Carl Fredrik Hill’s later Sister Anna and its nearly identical figure. From
what I remember, that’s what he wrote. Hill’s painting of his sister robbed of her shad
ow, which lies abandoned behind her. I imagine Kirkeby’s paintings as a feast of
detached shadows.
That’s as far as I get in my semisleepinduced journey. I wrote down the above as
bullet points in a notebook, which I opened again today, 10 May. Last night I was told
that Kirkeby had died.
What was supposed to have been the foreword of a catalogue for the artist’s 80th
birthday show has instead become a memorial to a wellrounded, richly faceted,
remarkable body of work. Time will give his paintings a wondrous texture, as Salto
wrote about the paintings of Jens Adolf Jerichau, in a commemorative piece in the
October 1917 issue of the journal Klingen. Shadows will continue to fill the hollows of
Kirkeby’s brick sculptures, and the weather over the years will patinate the bricks to
ever greater beauty.
In Ribe this fall, yellow leaves and a little rainwater will collect in the monument to
Ambrosius Stub, which in time will turn verdigris and imperceptibly merge with its site.
Most things blow away, but a great deal of Kirkeby’s work will remain and make more
space in life for those who get to know it.
Christian Vind
Untitled, 1999
[PKZ99012]
Untitled, 1993
[PKZ93012]
Untitled, 3007, 1995
[PKZ95012]
Untitled, 1993
[PKZ93013]
Untitled, 3007, 1995
[PKZ95011]
Untitled, 1993
[PKZ93014]
Untitled, 1993
[PKZ93015]
Untitled, 1993
[PKZ93011]
Untitled, 1966
[PKP66002]
Untitled, 1966
[PKP66001]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87021]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87022]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87025]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87029]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87023]
Untitled, ca. 1987
[PKZ87024]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87042]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87035]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87038]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87033]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87045]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87046]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87032]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87047]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87050]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87048]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87049]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87052]
Untitled, 1987
[PKZ87053]
Untitled, 1989
[PKZ89001]
Zwei Arme IV, 1985
Bronze
47 cm x 12 cm x 38 cm
1/6
PKB85001
Stele, 1997
Bronze
190 cm x 90 cm x 30 cm
2/6
PKB97001
Inventory IX, 2002
Inventory
Bronze
84 cm x 63 cm x 75 cm
2/4
PKB02089
Inventory X, 2002
Inventory
Bronze
92 cm x 59 cm x 80 cm
2/4
PKB02090
Inventory XI, 2002
Inventory
Bronze
110 cm x 68 cm x 70 cm
2/4
PKB02091
Untitled, 2009
Grønland
Gouache
31,5 cm x 38,5 cm
PKG09002
Untitled, 2009
Grønland
Gouache
31,5 cm x 38,5 cm
PKG09003
Untitled, 2009
Grønland
Gouache
31,5 cm x 38,5 cm
PKG09006
Untitled, 2009
Grønland
Gouache
31,5 cm x 38,5 cm
PKG09017
Untitled, 2009
Grønland
Gouache
31,5 cm x 38,5 cm
PKG09018
Untitled, 2009
Grønland
Gouache
31,5 cm x 38,5 cm
PKG09019
Untitled, 2009
Grønland
Gouache
31,5 cm x 38,5 cm
PKG09020
Untitled, 2009
Grønland
Gouache
31,5 cm x 38,5 cm
PKG09023
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11021
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11022
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11023
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11027
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11030
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11033
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11034
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11035
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11036
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11048
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11049
Untitled, 2011
Grønland
Gouache
29 cm x 36 cm
PKG11053
Untitled, 1965
Oil and pencil on
masonite
125 cm x 125 cm
PKI65007
Untitled, 1967
Mixed media on
masonite
122 cm x 486 cm
PKI67010
Ruinenwert, 19671977
Mixed media on
masonite
125,0 cm x 125,0 cm x
4,5 cm
PKI77009
Uden titel (Regnskov),
1980
Oil on canvas
202 cm x 240 cm
PKI80011
Untitled, 1981
Oil on canvas
119 cm x 98 cm
PKI81020
Untitled, 1985
Oil on canvas
195 cm x 400 cm
PKI85019
Leiser Wellenschlag
Grün, 2005
Oil on canvas
200 cm x 300 cm
PKI05006
Oprejst Fram, 2005
Oil on canvas
200 cm x 170 cm
PKI05012
Untitled, 2005
Mixed media on black
board
122 cm x 122 cm
PKI05014
Untitled, 2005
Mixed media on black
board
122 cm x 122 cm
PKI05015
Untitled, 2005
Mixed media on black
board
122 cm x 122 cm
PKI05019
Untitled, 2005
Oil on canvas
200 cm x 200 cm
PKI05029
Untitled, 2008
Mixed media on black
board
122 cm x 122 cm
PKI08007
Untitled, 2008
Mixed media on
masonite
122 cm x 122 cm
PKI08009
Untitled (Læsø), 2008
Mixed media on black
board
122 cm x 122 cm
PKI08019
Untitled, 2009
Mixed media on black
board
122 cm x 122 cm
PKI09010
Untitled, 2009
Mixed media on black
board
122 cm x 122 cm
PKI09021
Untitled, 2009
Mixed media on black
board
122 cm x 122 cm
PKI09024
Untitled (Lyon), 1987
Bronze
28 cm x 14 cm x 11 cm
5/6
PKM87001
Untitled, 1987
Bronze
10 cm x 24 cm x 24 cm
3/6
PKM87003
Untitled, 1987
Bronze
15 cm x 21 cm x 20 cm
3/6
PKM87007
Untitled, 1987
Bronze
15 cm x 13 cm x 13 cm
4/6
PKM87008
Model til Lyon, 1987
Bronze
14 cm x 28 cm x 26 cm
1/ 6
PKM87009
Port / Tor, 1988
Bronze
29,5 cm x 31,0 cm x
18,0 cm
6/6
PKM88039
Model, 1989
Bronze
31,5 cm x 27,0 cm x
27,0 cm
5/6
PKM89045
Untitled, 1990
Bronze
18 cm x 31 cm x 29 cm
3/6
PKM90001
Untitled, 1993
Bronze
21 cm x 29 cm x 27 cm
4/6
PKM93070
Per Kirkeby
Hommage à Per Kirkeby
28 August – 20 October 2018
Works / Værker
Model, 1996
Bronze
9 cm x 45 cm x 19 cm
3/6
PKM96002
Untitled, 1966
Hvedekorns Jubilæum
Linocut
120 cm x 124 cm
PKP66001
Untitled, 1966
Hvedekorns Jubilæum
Linocut
120 cm x 123 cm
PKP66002
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
78,0 cm x 61,5 cm
PKZ87021
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
78,0 cm x 61,5 cm
PKZ87022
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
54 cm x 43 cm
PKZ87023
Untitled, ca. 1987
Gouache
54 cm x 43 cm
PKZ87024
Untitled, 1987
Mixed media on paper
87 cm x 66 cm
PKZ87025
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
59 cm x 42 cm
PKZ87029
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
29,3 cm x 41,3 cm
PKZ87032
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
41,3 cm x 29,3 cm
PKZ87033
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
41,3 cm
PKZ87035
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
41,3 cm x 29,2 cm
PKZ87038
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
41,3 cm x 29,2 cm
PKZ87042
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
65,5 cm x 50 cm
PKZ87045
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
50 cm x 65,5 cm
PKZ87046
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
42 cm x 56 cm
PKZ87047
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
56 cm x 42 cm
PKZ87048
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
59 cm x 42 cm
PKZ87049
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
59 cm x 42 cm
PKZ87050
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
65,5 cm x 50 cm
PKZ87052
Untitled, 1987
Gouache
65,5 cm x 50 cm
PKZ87053
Untitled, 1989
Charcoal on paper
95 cm x 100 cm
PKZ89001
Untitled, 1993
Vestgrønland
Watercolour
32 cm x 41 cm
PKZ93011
Untitled, 1993
Vestgrønland
Watercolour
32 cm x 41 cm
PKZ93012
Untitled, 1993
Vestgrønland
Watercolour
32 cm x 41 cm
PKZ93013
Untitled, 1993
Vestgrønland
Watercolour
32 cm x 41 cm
PKZ93014
Untitled, 1993
Vestgrønland
Watercolour
32 cm x 41 cm
PKZ93015
Untitled, 3007, 1995
Grønland
Watercolour
40,5 cm x 53,0 cm
PKZ95011
Untitled, 3007, 1995
Grønland
Watercolour
40,5 cm x 53 cm
PKZ95012
Untitled, 1999
Charcoal on paper
250 cm x 170 cm x 3 cm
PKZ99012
Works / Værker
Per Kirkeby (1938-2018)
1938 Born 1 September in Copenhagen
1957-64 Studies geology at the University of Copenhagen
1965 Kirkeby’s first solo exhibition at Den Frie, Copen
hagen
1978-89 Professorship at the Academy of Art, Karlsruhe
1989-2000 Professorship at Die Städelshule, Frankfurt
2018 Died in his home in Hellerup on the 9 May
Selected public collections
MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Tate Modern, London
Musée des BeauxArts de Nantes, Nantes
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill
AlbrightKnox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Torino
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco
National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek
ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus
PER KIRKEBY BIOGRAPHY
Books on Per Kirkeby published
by Forlaget Bjerggaard
Erik Steffensen, Per Kirkeby, Close-Up, 2017
Per Kirkeby, Feltbog I-V, 20092014
Per Kirkeby & Keld Zeruneith, Rævesletten, 2009
Siegfried Gohr, On Per Kirkeby, 2008
Minik Rosing & Per Kirkeby, Verdensbillede/ Geologi og kunst, 2008
Poul Erik Tøjner, Per Kirkeby - Painting, 2008
Poul Erik Tøjner, Per Kirkeby – Skulptur, 2005
Per Kirkeby og Lotte Arnsted, Frokost, 2004
Bjarne Bækgaard, Stilladsarbejde - Samtaler med Per Kirkeby, 2001
Per Kirkeby, Di Bezzo, 2001
Mikael Wivel & Synne Rifbjerg, Per Kirkeby Stentryk, 2000
FLÆSKETORVET 85 A
DK–1711 KØBENHAVN V
TEL +45 33 93 42 21
TUESDAY-FRIDAY 1 PM–6 PM
SATURDAY 12 PM–4 PM
WWW.BJERGGAARD.COM
© The artist & Galleri Bo Bjerggaard
Translation Danish to English: Glen Garner
ISBN 9788793134348
A special thanks to Christian Vind
Thanks to Rosendahls
