Beatus Apokalypse, 1989, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
With the exhibition Per Kirkeby – The True Image opening on 12 September, HEART wants to breathe new life into the story about the avant-garde in Herning. Featuring more than 94 paintings, Masonites, and sculptures from 1963-1990, HEART will be undertaking a significant Kirkeby exhibition based on the vigorous art milieu unfolding on these moors half a century ago.
The Exhibition will be showing from 12 September 2015 to 17 January 2016.
KIRKEBY SOLD FROM A BASEMENT IN HERNING
It is common knowledge that there was a veritable boom of Danish and Italian art during the 1950s and 60s in the Herning area. Conversely, little is known about Per Kirkeby’s role in this narrative.
Per Kirkeby created his first brick sculpture in Ikast in 1973. It’s still there – in the ’art district’ in Per Kirkeby Vej. Since then, many of Kirkeby’s Masonites were sold in the area. Private art patrons in Herning bought Kirkeby’s works from the industrious art dealer Svend Hansen from Copenhagen – many of the early Masonites were kept in a basement of a private house in the town. The vocational training college, too, bought Kirkeby’s works, and a fine collection of Kirkeby’s art is now adorning the corridors of Herning Business School.
CONTINUING THE LOCAL HISTORY OF ART
With the exhibition Per Kirkeby – The True Image, HEART wants to bring Per Kirkeby into the unique history of this area. In the wake of artists such as Piero Manzoni and Paul Gadegaard in the 1960s, Per Kirkeby posed an interesting option for the art lovers in Herning. Focusing on works that were once bought and sold in this area, HEART wants to show Kirkeby from a local perspective which, once and for all, secures the artist a place in the avant-garde movement in Herning.
BRAND NEW KIRKEBY SCULPTURE AT HEART
At HEART, visitors will be able to see a significant Per Kirkeby exhibition showing the essence of his impressive oeuvre. Paintings, blackboards, and sculptures expose the multifaceted artistic activities of Kirkeby, and in HEART’s architect-designed museum building from 2009, Kirkeby’s large-sized works are shown to their best advantage. Arrangements are in place for a new sculpture to be executed in the gallery - made especially for the exhibition by Per Kirkeby.
THE EXHIBITION HAS BEEN GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY:
Queen Margrethe’s and Prince Henrik’s Foundation
Augustinus Fonden
New Carlsberg Foundation
Beckett-fonden
Knud Højgaards Fond
Oticon Fonden
The Danish Arts Foundation
Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond
Midtjydsk Skole- og Kulturfond
Egernsund Tegl