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Poul S. Christiansen (1855-1933), Dante and Beatrice in Paradise, National Gallery of Denmark, 1895. |
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August Strindberg (1849-1912), Storm in the Skerries. "The Flying Dutchman," National Gallery of Denmark, 1892. |
C.W. Eckersberg (1783-1853), View through Three of the Northwestern Arches of the Third Storey of the Colosseum. A Thunderstorm is Brewing over the City, National Gallery of Denmark, 1815.
Olafur Eliasson (f. 1967), Islandserie, National Gallery of Denmark, 1995.
Christian Schmidt-Rasmussen (f. 1963), At Long Last Mankind Found a Way to Conquer Death, National Gallery of Denmark, 1998.
Christian Schmidt-Rasmussen (f. 1963), Kill nature, Nature kills, National Gallery of Denmark, 1997.
Jens Juel (1745-1802), Niels Ryberg with his Son Johan Christian and his Daughter-in-Law Engelke, née Falbe, National Gallery of Denmark, 1797. |
Statens Museum for Kunst Throughout history, mankind has perceived nature differently at different times. During the Middle Ages, nature was mostly regarded as evil and mankind was prey to its whims, which only God could protect us from. This understanding was replaced by a more positive view of nature in the Renaissance, where man begins to regard nature as a useful resource that can be controlled. This way of thinking became increasingly striking in modern times. Nature came to be regarded as inexhaustible and something to be mastered and completely subjected to human needs. After a good 150 years of exploitation, pollution, and other catastrophes, a new picture evolved at the end of the 20th century, with nature as the weak victim that must be protected. Today we have arrived at the traumatic realization that nature simply reacts to that which we subject it to, and that it strikes back, so to speak, without regard to mankind’s needs. The exhibition Nature Strikes Back at the National Gallery of Denmark seeks to place in perspective our present relationship to nature by telling the story of how Western culture has perceived nature in different ways through the ages. With about 110 works from practically all of art history, the exhibition provides a visual story about the varying views of nature from ancient times, to the religious doomsday rhetoric of the Middle Ages, through the baroque period’s staging of nature, to the present day’s necessary attempt to create new ways of relating to nature. The exhibition has a broad embrace. Paintings, sculptures, drawings, and graphic works from almost 2,000 years of art history are carefully arranged with a view to bringing out the poetic and symbolic ideas about the relationship between man and nature that are expressed through visual art. Here we find works from some of art history’s major figures, from Mantegna, Dürer, Bruegel the Elder, Titian, and Rubens through Cezanne, Braque, and Asger Jorn, to Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Per Kirkeby and Olafur Eliasson. But there is more here than just a parade of art history’s great icons, for the exhibition casts a fresh glance at art that we may have thought we knew . The works are part of an overall theme and are experienced from a particular point of view, i.e. as both unique and coherent statements from history about mankind’s understanding of nature. The exhibition’s many works are arranged in thematic chapters that produce a visual impact based on the most striking change in mankind’s changeable view of nature. The story is an essential and leading element in the exhibition. As something quite new, each theme is introduced by an animated film in which the organizers of the exhibition introduce and discuss the subject at hand, just as they provide analyses of chosen works. The set design of the exhibition aims for a visually tight framework in order to create order among the many different artistic expressions, as well as the themes, techniques, media, and time periods spanned by the exhibition. The exhibition appears on the occasion of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen later this year. The goal of the National Gallery of Denmark with this exhibition is to seek out the historical background for our view of nature as it can be read in visual art. Rather than supply scientific expert knowledge of the relevant climatic conditions, it is the intention of the exhibition to show how the western world through time has read nature into different world views and dealt with nature on this basis. Precisely by pointing out the variability in mankind’s relation to nature, the exhibition comments on the current climate crisis and puts it into perspective. In connection with the exhibition, the National Gallery of Denmark is publishing the catalogue, Nature Strikes Back. Man and Nature in Western Art. Foreword is by Karsten Ohrt. Main articles by Hanne Kolind Poulsen and Henrik Holm. Special article by Jacob Wamberg, 164 pages, richly illustrated, price is 168 DKK and may be purchased in the museum bookstore, ISBN: 978-87-92023-37-7.
Gerhard Richter (f. 1932), 9.9.94, National Gallery of Denmark, 1994. |
Melchior Lorck (1526-1588), The Flood, National Gallery of Denmark, 1540s. |
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), The Opening of the Fifth and Sixth Seals, National Gallery of Denmark, 1497-1498. |
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Jan Harmensz Muller (1571-1628), Cain Killing Abel, The Royal Collection of Prints and Drawings, c. 1589. |
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03 Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), The Dragon devouring the companions of Cadmus,The Royal Collection of Prints and Drawings, 1588.
Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), The Large Hercules, The Royal Collection of Prints and Drawings, 1589. |
Statens Museum for Kunst After becoming free from Spanish control, Haarlem grew in the 1580s into one of the leading artistic centres in the young Republic of the Netherlands. Central to this blossoming prosperity were artists such as Karel van Mander, Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, and, not least of all, Hendrick Goltzius. Together they formed a study circle devoted to Haarlem Mannerism, as it became known. Their particular pictorial language was characterised by a strong awareness of style and cultivated elegance, not to mention a pursuit of an expression that prioritised artful ingenuity over naturalism. Their work depicted exaggeratedly brawny musclemen, violent drama, wild fantasy, and a rare richness of detail. Publication of these engravings meant at the same time that the Haarlem mannerists’ works quickly became accessible to many, and at a low price, and so their distinguishing trademarks were also passed down to subsequent generations of Dutch artists. The dissemination of graphic works also went hand in hand with the dawning theorisation of art that characterised the 16th century. The exhibition at the National Gallery of Denmark makes copper engraver and publisher Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) its natural focal point. It was in his workshop that the Haarlem artists developed their unique engraving style, and it was his publishing house that published the majority of prints at the highpoint of Haarlem mannerism. Together with colleagues and students, Goltzius personally reproduced a long series of artworks by international masters, especially Italians. But, as the exhibition shows, reproduction engraving by the Haarlem mannerists rapidly turned into a special and independent art form, in which the graphic artist was judged on his degree of technical inventiveness and ability to interpret the original whilst adding in his own artistic expertise and creativity to the work. The engravers competed amongst one another and their prints soon attained a paradoxical degree of independence underpinned by the fact that many contemporaneous painters used them as models for their own works. When looking at Danish ecclesiastical art from 1580-1700, one again sees Haarlem-inspired imagery occurring in the form of carved or painted figures in numerous altarpieces, pulpits and epitaphs. The exhibition in the National Gallery of Denmark shows a total of 72 works, a selection of the sought-after collection of Dutch graphic art in the Royal Collection of Prints and Drawings, supplemented with individual works from the museum’s painting and sculpture collection. The museum’s collection of Dutch mannerism was established under Christian IV, who, in keeping with the international fashion at royal courts of the time, had his castle decorated with mannerist art obtained almost exclusively from the Netherlands. In conjunction with the exhibition, the National Gallery of Denmark is releasing a richly illustrated catalogue that provides an extensive overview of the Haarlem mannerists, The Artful Image. Haarlem-Mannerists 1580-1600, Foreword is by Karsten Ohrt, main article by David Burmeister Kaaring, 56 pages. Danish with English version, price is 58 DKK and is available for purchase in the museum bookstore. ISBN: 978-87-92023-39-1. |
Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), The Four Disgracers – Ikaros, The Royal Collection of Prints and Drawings, 1588. |
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Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Nightmare, Vestsjællands Kunstmuseum, Sorø, C. 1800, Oil on canvas, 35.3 x 41.7 cm. |
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Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), The Wounded Philoctetes, Statens Museum for Kunst, 1775, Oil on canvas, 123 x 175.5 cm. |
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), The Archangel Michael and Satan Disputing about the Body of Moses, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, C. 1782, Oil on canvas, 49.7 x 61.7 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Culmin’s Ghost Appearing Before His Mother, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, C. 1794, Oil on canvas, 63 x 78 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Adrastus Slaying Himself at the Tomb of Atys, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 1774-75, Oil on canvas, 48 x 57.4 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Catherine the Great Departing this Earth, Statens Museum for Kunst, 1796-97, Pencil, pen, grey ink, brush, and grey washing in multiple hues, 221 x 221 mm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Caracalla Sacrificing the Dagger He used to Slay His Brother on the Altar of Serapis, Statens Museum for Kunst, 1743-1809, Pencil, pen, and brown and black ink, 238 x 219 mm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), The Slave Davus and the Maid Mysis. From Terence's Andria, Statens Museum for Kunst, 1804, Oil on canvas, 157.5 x 142 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Simo and his former slave Sosia. From Terence´s Andria, Statens Museum for Kunst, 1803, Oil on canvas, 157.5 x 142 cm. |
Statens Museum for Kunst Armed with gods, mythological creatures, coarse satire and a modern social outlook, he made his art a mouthpiece for reform in a time of unrest under absolute monarchy, social injustice and stifled freedom of expression. Despite his international orientation and multifaceted, powerful life's work, Abildgaard has long stood in the shadow of his student C.W Eckersberg and the more popular and mild-mannered Golden Age painters who followed. With a solid 150 works, this exhibition at Statens Museum for Kunst, marking the 200th anniversary of Abildgaard’s death is the first major presentation of Abildgaard in Denmark since 1916. Court Painter and Revolutionary A figure ahead of his time, Abildgaard epitomised the romantic image of the artist as uncompromising loner walking his own path. Absorbed by the new and the dangerous emanating from Paris before and after 1789, Abildgaard early on became an artist of revolution and forward movement. His relationship to the Royal Court was, for the same reasons, one of tension. Nonetheless, he dutifully served for a number of years as court painter, including with his decoration of banquet hall in Christiansborg Palace — a feat of pomp and splendour that largely went up in flames in the fire that ravaged the royal palace in 1794. But even in this decoration, of which the exhibition shows the surviving works and preliminary sketches, Abildgaard demonstrated a subtle but critical rethinking of society's established power structure. And any infringement upon his artistic integrity would not be taken lightly. “I am not a pencil,” was his remark to the court, when Abildgaard apparently felt himself to be too subject to orders regarding one of his many commissions. His social critique became all the more pronounced in a series of graphic works that Abildgaard produced under a pseudonym together with the engraver C.F. Clemens. The exhibition presents numerous examples of these satirical releases from the series Copenhagen Scene, in which Abildgaard, with a distinct flair for low comedy, exposed the regime and the privileged of society. Revolution Embodied – With 150 works, this exhibition embraces Abildgaard’s life work from his early years through to his late productions. The exhibition is as such a retrospective, but avoids typical chronological layout. The many works are instead presented in thematic clusters that illustrate Abildgaard’s principle themes. Book release
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Ossian, Statens Museum for Kunst, C. 1780-82, Oil on canvas, 42 x 35.5 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Niels Klim Thinks he hears the Deacon when he is Awakened by a bull. From Ludvig Holberg's The journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground, Statens Museum for Kunst, 1785-87, Oil on canvas, 41.5 x 35.5 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Jupiter Weighing the Fate of Man, Ribe Kunstmuseum, 1793, Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 108 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Pamphilus and his servant Davus. From Terence´s Andria, Statens Museum for Kunst, 1802, Oil on canvas, 157.5 x 128.5 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Klismos chair, The Danish Museum of Art & Design, C. 1790, Beech, gilt with canework seat, 76.5 x 58 x 69 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Standing nude, Rome, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 1772-77, Oil on canvas, 68.1 x 51.7 cm.
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Richard III Awakening from his Nightmare, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo, 1787, Oil on canvas, 38 x 29 cm. |
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), Richard III Before the Battle of Bosworth. From Shakespeare’s Richard III, Randers Kunstmuseum, 1780-89, Oil on canvas, 39.5 x 61 cm. |
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809), The Temple of Fortune, The Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Palace, 1785, Oil on screen with tin plate, compounded of square pieces; semi-circular top with painted Medusa’s head, 181 x 150 x 17 cm. |
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Christian Lemmerz (f. 1959), Head, Photo: Linn Sandholm, 2009. |
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Christian Lemmerz (1959 - ?), Grave (detail), Photo: Linn Sandholm, 2009.
Christian Lemmerz (f. 1959), Exhibition view, Photo: Linn Sandholm, 2009.
Christian Lemmerz, Photo: Linn Sandholm, 2009. |
Statens Museum for Kunst German-born Danish sculptor Christian Lemmerz (b. 1959) demonstrates the critical meeting of the present with classical education and romantic wit. The main thematic interests in the artist’s production have been death and transitoriness ever since his debut in 1982. Lemmerz has focused uncompromisingly on the process of decomposition, decay and physical death, among the few remaining taboos in Western culture, for example with his notorious rotting pigs’ bodies or the more recent original interpretations of the massive pictorial bombardment by the mass media. His new exhibition LARGO is no exception, although it marks a decisive new development in Lemmerz’ work as regards both material and reflection. This is the first time Lemmerz has worked in bronze on such a large scale: all the works exhibited weigh between a half and a whole ton. His preferred subject is also expanded in a more cultural-theoretical direction. Death is depicted in all its banality both as the concrete termination of physical life, and as existential emptiness and absence. The exhibition has a rather sacred atmosphere which has an almost redemptive view of death as the well-spring of culture, the unavoidable factor which lies at the root of our longings and efforts to speculate beyond the limited horizons of life. LARGO was specifically created for Statens Museum for Kunst, and its conception is an integrated sculptural installation consisting of seven large reliefs and five free-standing sculptures. The tone of the exhibition is struck by the title: largo is also the musical notation for a broad, slow movement which is usually the tempo of solemn and melancholy elegiac melodies. Solemnity, weight and slowness are similarly inherent in both the format of the exhibition and the material of the works. The works all refer to Christian burial rituals and their appurtenances. The symbolism insistently confronts the viewer face to face with the long period between birth and death. We find an oversized foetus, a hermetically closed coffin, a large bell with no tongue, and a golden flower lying on the floor like a severed head. The seven reliefs refer to the seven days of the Creation poetically displaced so that they deal with the repressed nights of Creation during which darkness and death assume shape. The exhibition draws comparisons — not unironically — between the exhibition room and that of the church. Lemmerz has thought about the viewer’s relationship to the installation from the very first and created a point of departure for a sensory experience that can set both body and thoughts in motion. LARGO possesses an almost religious authority as a contrast to the fast-paced and superficial consumer society of our time; the interplay between the works with the surrounding architecture and light create a spiritual environment. Christian Lemmerz was born in Karlsruhe in Germany and trained as a sculptor at the Academy of Arts in Carrara in Italy (1978-82) before he settled down in Copenhagen and went to the Royal Academy of Arts there (1982-86) and participated in the working community Værkstedt Værst, which included artists like Erik A. Frandsen and Lars Nørgaard. Lemmerz has worked on several projects together with the painter Michael Kvium since 1985. Lemmerz has participated in a number of important exhibitions, mostly in Europe and the USA, including Brussels, Cologne, Barcelona, The Hague, Paris, Toronto, Sao Paolo and New York. He is represented in the Saatchi Collection in London as well as in many Danish museums, including AROS, Horsens Museum of Art and Statens Museum for Kunst. Lemmerz has also received a number of grants and prizes, most recently this spring when he received the Thorvaldsen Medal, the highest distinction accorded a Danish sculptor. Statens Museum for Kunst has published a catalogue on the occasion of the exhibition, which both gives a comprehensive introduction to the exhibition and also pictorially documents the artist’s work with the large bronzes at the ships’ foundry C. C. Jensen A/S and Skulpturstøberiet, the sculpture foundry in Svendborg. Introduction by Karsten Ohrt and main essay by Birgitte Anderberg.
Christian Lemmerz (f. 1959), Grave III (detail), Photo: Anders Sune Berg, 2009.
Christian Lemmerz (f. 1959), Body, Photo: Linn Sandholm, 2009.
Christian Lemmerz, Photo: Linn Sandholm, 2009. |
Christian Lemmerz (f. 1959), Eye, Photo: Anders Sune Berg, 2009. |
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Oluf Høst, A night in May, 1935, Courtesy the Oluf Høst Museum. |
Oluf Høst, The-dying of a winter's day, 1943, Courtesy the Oluf Høst Museum.
Oluf Høst, Fire, 1954-56, Courtesy the Oluf Høst Museum.
Oluf Høst, Herring women, 1963, Courtesy the Oluf Høst Museum.
Oluf Høst, Newfallen snow, 1936, Courtesy the Oluf Høst Museum.
Oluf Høst, Night at the harbour, 1935, Courtesy the Oluf Høst Museum. |
ARKEN Oluf Høst – Between Heaven and Earth emphasises the metaphysical and enigmatic aspects of the pictures of Oluf Høst the romantic painter of the north. Concurrently with the exhibition ARKEN presents works from its permanent collection that are also characterised by a romantic perspective. Among them is the recent acquisition Your Negotiable Panorama (2006) by the world-famous artist Olafur Eliasson which is shown for the first time in Denmark. We know Oluf Høst as the Bornholm painter who loved his native island so much that he depicted the same subject matter again and again — his farm Bognemark, the round churches, the view over Gudhjem and the herring smokehouses. But Høst was more than that. He was a Nordic romantic. Although his subjects of choice were drawn from Bornholm, it was less the concrete places or subjects that interested him. Høst was oriented towards mysticism and the spiritual dimensions of the physical world — the enigmatic space between heaven and earth. Through painting he wished to reach beyond the physical form of things in order to understand their innermost essence. He wished, in his own words, to reproduce “the silent godhead in nature.” Therefore Oluf Høst – Between Heaven and Earth emphasises the metaphysical and enigmatic aspects of Høst’s paintings. His peculiar pictorial universe holds a timeless power that continues to influence and seduce us. The approximately. 60 paintings of the exhibition are on loan from the Oluf Høst museum in Gudhjem, Malmö Konstmuseum and private owners. The exhibition includes a number of works from the Høst family which have only rarely been on loan. In 1935 Høst bought the farm Bognemark which became a central motif in his art. In the painting The Dying of a Winter’s Day (1943) a dark, stooping shadow moves across the farmyard at Bognemark. The farm is cast in twilight, but the red and yellow colours of the evening sun shine through a carriage passage. Høst was alive to contrasts. In the dusk the farm’s appearance is transformed into abstract surfaces of colour, with warm meeting cool and day meeting night. The combination of the figurative and the abstract, the warm and cold hues evoke an atmosphere of both security and deprivation, calm and unease. Høst painted Bognemark again and again. By repeating his subject matter he explored how our view of the world is conditioned by time and the eyes that see. Concurrently with the exhibition, ARKEN presents contemporary works of art from the museum’s collection which, like Høst, continue a romanticist perspective. The interest in mankind’s perceptions of the physical world, which Høst in masterful ways transferred to his canvasses, we find as well in Olafur Eliasson, Anselm Reyle and Mads Gamdrup. Like Høst, the artists of today, employing totally different effects or media however, explore subjects related to human perception, the relationship between body and consciousness, changeability and fixed forms. ARKEN’s new acquisition Your Negotiable Panorama (2006), a large installation by the world-famous artist Olafur Eliasson, is a good example of a work that, combining nature’s materials and artificially produced ones, recreates nature’s fascinating force and places human perception centre stage. Both the works by Høst and Eliasson demand time, concentration and reflection. The large installation by Eliasson was acquired recently and has not previously been shown in Denmark.
Oluf Høst, Selfportrait, 1907, Courtesy the Oluf Høst Museum. |
Oluf Høst, Orion and light skies, 1956, Courtesy the Oluf Høst Museum. |
Liu Ye, Portrait of Mozart, 2008. Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30cm., © the Artist. |
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Li-Jikai, Mushroom, 2009. Acrylic on canvas, 100 cm. © the-Artist.
Li-Jikai, Dolls, 2009. Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 80 cm. © the Artist.
Qi-Zhilong, Untitled, from the series Chinese Girls, 2008, 220 x 180cm., © the Artist,
Yang Shaobin, Untitled, 2007. Oil on canvas, 260 x 180cm. © the Artist. |
ARKEN Chinamania represents a selection of Chinese contemporary painters: From established artists to the very young generation, including: Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Yang Shaobin, Wang Guangyi, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhou Chunya, Mao Yan, Qi Zhilong, Liu Ye, Li Jikai, and Wei Jia. Chinamania features 11 contemporary painters from China. Most of Chinamania’s 24 works of art were created specially for this exhibition. Colourful, multifaceted and narrative are some of the key words that apply to all the exhibition’s works. In Tokyo you can drink green tea latte, and in Israel you can buy a kosher Big Mac. International brands are merging with national customs. This happens not only on the economic market — in contemporary art too international and national perspectives are joining in new ways. Chinamania shows how contemporary painting in China both abandons and continues China’s classical art forms: ink painting, classical oil painting, woodcut and the social realism of propaganda art. At the same time the classical techniques mix with expressive brushstrokes, a sweet comics aesthetics and the realism of figure painting. In Fang Lijun’s painting 2009. no. 5 a giant fly soars across the sky with a child on its back. The painting manifests a clear parallel to classical Chinese landscape painting in which the landscape can appear dreamy and poetic. At the same time it has a touch of kitsch because of Fang’s use of a realistic painting style and very bright, strong colours. In Yue Minjun’s painting Outside and On the Stage (2009) three hysterically laughing clones appear before a stage with a red curtain. The sky behind them — the symbol of the space of freedom — is executed as an illusionist backdrop. The three laughing clones partly mime the old saying "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." According to the saying, however, the last figure usually holds its hands over its mouth. In Yue’s painting instead the third clone holds his hands up in the air triumphantly. The work describes a situation in which the individual is able to speak but not see or hear. Yue employs the figures to take a critical stance towards the strict censorship and collective homogeneity distinguishing Chinese culture and history. At the same time, with the title Outside and On the Stage, he points out the hierarchical differentiation between Western and non-Western art that governs the international art scene. Like the three figures in the painting, China’s contemporary artists are both outside and on the stage. In his portrait series Chinese Girls (2008) Qi Zhilong explores the duality characteristic of China’s development from an anti-capitalist Communist society to Deng Xiaoping’s market oriented socialism of today. In Qi’s portraits of women our time’s consumer culture is juxtaposed with romantic memories from the days of the revolution when the uniformed youths were celebrated for their courage and commitment. The three portraits in the exhibition depict young female red guards. At first glance we are seduced by the girls’ innocent appearance, their black almond eyes and long schoolgirl plaits. The girls look neither raw nor in fighting trim, but rather resemble innocent doe-eyed schoolgirls. Their gazes go from innocence to terror. By removing characteristic Communist marks, e.g. the red star, Qi imbues the portraits with a whole other meaning which goes against the traditional portraiture of the heroes of the revolution. When Qi decides only to portray young female models with an innocent expression, he is also referring to the consumer culture of today, where posters of young, beautiful and uniform models permeate the city space and fashion magazines. In Li Jikai’s Mushroom (2009) a small black-haired boy is sitting in front of a giant and obviously very poisonous, yellow toadstool with black dots. The earth is desiccated, and the only natural plant growth left are the poisonous toadstools. A white hose snakes across the ground. The hose is a recurrent motif in Li’s works. With the other recurrent objects — empty boxes, an open book with blank pages and broken boards — it symbolises rests of a shattered civilisation where only a single human has been left. The painting shows a state of gloom, loss and loneliness which recurs in Li’s paintings. Li represents a young generation of artists, often known under the heading ‘the ego generation.’ In an attempt to gain greater insight into human identity and psychology, the young artists replace social issues with individual ones. China’s political past, oriented towards collective communities, has been replaced with themes relating to their own lives, dreams and feelings. A key trend is the mix between national and international features: On the one hand the artists consider their own lives and emotions, dealing explicitly with Chinese culture and history. On the other, they turn their gazes towards the rest of the world. A prime example is the artist Wang Guangyi. His painting Collectivism and Art (2007) shows a Communist propaganda subject featuring a band of soldiers holding Mao’s Little Red Book. Scattered across the painting are Chinese identity numbers and serial numbers from commercial products. The style resembles Pop Art. Overall Western art history is often an obvious source of inspiration. Thus, in one of the paintings shown in the exhibition, Yang Shaobin reproduces the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh’s down-at-heel shoes from the painting A Pair of Shoes (1886). Contemporary art puts down roots — and branches off In recent years the contemporary art scene has seen a boom in China. This is partly due to increasing political openness in general and towards other artistic forms of expression than the propagandistic one. At the same time the economic market in China has expanded. This has increased the opportunities for sales both nationally and internationally. In the early 1990s for instance, there were only five galleries in Beijing; today there are more than a hundred. Chinese contemporary art, however, is not merely a passive reflection of socio-political changes. Regardless of whether the artists seek towards their own intimate space or embrace the grand global perspective, it holds specific narratives of reality and testimonies of our time which cannot be boiled down to a simple — and national stereotypical — point. Concurrently with Chinamania, Arken presents the exhibition Utopia. Utopia shows works by the Chinese contemporary artist Qiu Anxiong who works with installation and video. Chinamania and Utopia together offer a unique opportunity to see first-rate Chinese art and to get a thorough overview of the Chinese art scene just now. Chinamania is mounted in collaboration with Zhu Huiping, curator and owner of the gallery dARTex (The Danish Art Exchange). |
Wang-Guangyi, Collectivism and Art, from the series Great Criticism, 2007, Oil on canvas, 300 x 600 cm. © the-Artist. |
Yue Minjun, Outside and Inside the |
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Qiu Anxiong, Staring into Amnesia, Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery. |
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Qiu Anxiong, The New Book of Mountains and Seas, Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery. |
Qiu Anxiong, Fly to South, Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery.
Qiu Anxiong, Staring into Amnesia, Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery.
Qiu Anxiong, The New Book of Mountains and Seas, Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery.
Qiu Anxiong, Staring into Amnesia, Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery. |
ARKEN A 25 metres long, 42 tons heavy Chinese train carriage stops in Arken Museum of Modern Art’s unique exhibition space The Art Axis, ready to take the museum’s visitors on a journey unlike any other. A journey into China’s past, presence and future. Into deliberations of the good life and the good society. Of the dreams we have today – for ourselves and for the world. In the 1960s and 1970s it ran in northeastern China. Ordinary Chinese people sat on the hard wooden seats and were transported to and from work, on family visits, tours and holidays. Now it stops in Arken’s Art Axis with the purpose of making Danish museum visitors think about the dreams and values that drive them and the world they live in. The train carriage is the principal work of the first exhibition in the museum’s large-scale Utopia project. A project that is to raise the issue of the grand shared notion of the perfect society. Whatever happened to it? Does it still exist today? Have the international financial crisis and the American presidential election made it more topical? And if it does not exist, what has taken its place? Individual dreams of the good life, notions of globalisation, small enclaves of communities? The Utopia exhibition is the first of three exhibitions of contemporary art shown in Arken’s Art Axis in the period 2009-2011 — one per year. Each exhibition presents a significant, international contemporary artist who explores art’s potential with regards to the notions of “the good life.” The first artist is the Chinese Qui Anxiong (b. 1972). Qui Anxiong gave the train carriage an artistic makeover after it had ended its career as a means of public transportation, transforming it into the work Staring into Amnesia (2007). A work of art which invites us on a journey even though the carriage is motionless. A journey into China’s past, presence and future. For when the guests come aboard the train and sit down on the hard wooden seats, they journey through China’s history. Video clips of documentary and propaganda films from China from 1910 until today pass by the windows as fragments of memories alternating with silhouettes of everyday scenes: a girl waiting by a ventilator, two people playing chess, groups of people in processions, riots, struggles or celebration. What has been is juxtaposed with what is. And with the train as metaphor for movement in time, it raises the question of which destinations await us up ahead. Is the next stop Utopia? What do we hope will come, what do we dream of? Staring into Amnesia is the chief work of the Utopia exhibition. It explores how humankind’s endeavours to create the perfect society through political and religious overall solutions, both historically and today, often result in the utopia’s antithesis: an oppressed, conflicted dystopia. Another work in the exhibition is the animated film The New Book of Mountains and Seas (2006). The film consists of 6,000 drawings created by Qiu Anxiong in his small one bedroom apartment in Shanghai. It presents us with a mythologised version of the world today in which modern technology and nature merge: helicopters hover in the air like big birds, and black clad people fly like planes, crashing the Twin Towers in a drawn version of 9/11. In a poetic and dreamlike idiom, sharply contrasting with the depicted reality, the work explores the themes of religious and political conflicts characterising the global reality of our time. |
Qiu Anxiong, The New Book of Mountains and Seas, Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery. |
Qiu Anxiong, Fly to South, Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery. |
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