PER KIRKEBY - BRONZE

Per Kirkeby (1938-2018) is a key artist in Louisiana’s collection, which features works from his earliest beginnings to the very last years of his life.

The exhibition in spring 2020 takes a close look at Kirkeby’s bronze sculptures and the artist’s work with figure and space that also occupied his painting in the early 1980s.

While the bronzes have often played a supporting role in shows of his work, this exhibition will present a majority of Kirkeby’s sculptures, sometimes in interaction with individual paintings and drawings, while spotlighting his personal affinities with old masters – Rodin and others – that so typified the intellectual range of his outlook.

The first ever comprehensive presentation of Kirkeby’s bronzes, the exhibition will take up the museum’s entire West Wing. It is curated by Louisiana’s director, Poul Erik Tøjner, who has written several books on and with the Danish artist, including two central volumes, Per Kirkeby: Painting and Per Kirkeby: Sculpture.

Poul Erik Tøjner was also behind Louisiana’s big 2002 exhibition 122 x 122 Paintings on Masonite, featuring Kirkeby’s Pop art from the 1960s and 1970s. Later, to celebrate Kirkeby’s 70th birthday in 2008, he organized a large retrospective, accompanied by a film with the artist.