Per Kirkeby

There is a quality in the work of Per Kirkeby (Copenhagen, 1938–2018), which is a result of his diverse, modern art education. Kirkeby studied Geology at the University of Copenhagen, but later enrolled at the Ex-School (Experimental Art School), Copenhagen, where he acquired a broad range of artistic knowledge in various disciplines including painting, graphic design, film and performance. Seen in perspective, his work is a compendium of these formal concerns, as well as others such as the essay and other forms of writing; architecture and sculpture.

While Kirkeby’s work can easily be situated within Danish art as a whole, for instance in the 1984 exhibition Uit Het Noorden (From the North), which grouped him together with Munch and Jorn, his work tends to be more closely associated with that of German artists. However, he also cannot be neatly fitted into the dialectical opposition between the formal practices of Richter or Baselitz and the more ideologically based work of Beuys or Polke. This variety of works and styles was well-represented in the exhibition at the IVAM Centre del Carme.

In another facet, during the transformation of the Turia into the city park it is today Kirkeby installed the architectural sculpture Valéncia (1989) in a site along the riverbed. Built with handmade bricks, the piece pays tribute to the city’s Roman and Arabic history. This and similar works since 1972 have become the Danish artist’s most representative pieces throughout the world. The maintenance of this magnificent work, which was partly constrained and hidden after the building of the Pont de les Arts, has been a complex affair. Its reconstruction and re-siting to the Parc Central, where the IVAM’s new museum building is to be situated, will give the piece a second, more visible life and better possibilities of conservation.