Curated by Erik Steffensen
That Per Kirkeby works with a diverse range of media—painting, graphics, sculpture, installation, and film—is well known. But his Danish audience also recognizes him as an essayist with a substantial monographic backlist that illustrates his varied tastes. This exhibition reveals Kirkeby’s relationship to the art-historical greats about whom he has written (like Giacometti, Gauguin, and Rodin) by displaying their works in dialogue with his own. While this sounds like a potential pantheon, Steffensen, an artist and professor at Copenhagen’s Royal Academy, suggests that the show is more like an open studio, exploring Kirkeby’s particular “principle of proximity.” If like items should be placed together, it’s not surprising that Kirkeby’s local colleagues, like Tal R, will also get their due.
