Sale: 560 / Evening Sale, Dec. 06. 2024 in Munich Lot 124000989


124000989
Per Kirkeby
Ohne Titel, 2008.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 80,000 - 120,000

 
$ 88,000 - 132,000

Information on buyer's premium, taxation and resale right compensation will be available four weeks before the auction.
Ohne Titel. 2008.
Oil on canvas.
Monogrammed and dated '08' on the reverse. 200 x 130 cm (78.7 x 51.1 in).
[KA/JS].

Kirkeby's fascinating and versatile accomplishments in painting, literature, and film made him one of the most important European artists of his generation.
• His significant landscape impressions condensed into sensuous “structures” are among his most sought-after works.
• This painting was part of the noteworthy Kirkeby exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk 2008.
• Kirkeby was honored with solo exhibitions at, among others, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Tate Modern, London, the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, and the Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg.
• Paintings by the Danish artist are in important international collections like Tate Modern, London, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
.

The work is registered in the Per Kirkeby Archive, Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Denmark. It will be included in the forthcoming third volume of the catalogue raisonné of Per Kirkeby's paintings (1990-2018), edited by Ane Hejlskov Larsen.
We are grateful to Mr. Lucas Haberkorn, M.A., for his kind support in cataloging this lot.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne (with the gallery's label on the stretcher).
Galerie Sabine Knust, Munich.
Private collection Southern Germany (acquired from the above in 2011).

EXHIBITION: Per Kirkeby, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, September 2, 2008 – January 25, 2009, cat. no. 62 (illustrated)
Hellwach – mit geschlossenen Lidern, Künstlerhaus Göttingen im Lichtenberghaus, Göttingen, April 11 – June 13, 2010, p. 18 (illustrated).

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Per Kirkeby, who passed away in his Danish hometown of Copenhagen in 2018, is considered the most internationally recognized Danish artist of his generation and one of the most important European contemporary artists. Since making his debut in the early 1960s, he had developed his motifs – or, in his own words, “structures” – which form the primary substance of his painting. With a background in geology, Kirkeby repeatedly drew inspiration from the rich landscape of his Danish homeland. In continuation of a Northern European landscape art tradition rooted in the work of, among others, Caspar David Friedrich, he evolved an intuitive, improvisational pictorial language that occupies the sublime realm between figuration and abstraction. With its organic flow of color, texture, and form, the present work is less a representation of a specific place than a sensual homage to nature's magic and mysteries. Kirkeby explains: “There is a hidden reality, and it is the real reality [..] We only see it in glimpses. A painter can sometimes see it [..], and if I paint at all, it is only because I have those glimpses.” (Per Kirkeby, quoted from: Per Kirkeby, Brussels, ex. cat. Galerie Phillipe Guimot, Bruxelles, 1991, p. 64).
In large formats and with a rich palette, Kirkeby uses his signature visual language to create sensual motifs reminiscent of American Color Field Painting and Abstract Expressionism, bringing the idea of landscape as a sedimented to the canvas with great skill. Kirkeby sees nature in a cross-section rather than in space; the surface gains structure between transparency and density, from the muted and blurred brushstrokes in the background to the powerful gestures in the foreground. The work is executed in an autumn palette with dramatic and expressive colors. In a lengthy work process, many layers of paint are applied, only some of which remain visible in the resulting work. The motif appears hidden, emerging only in traces, yet it cannot be immediately deciphered. As such, Kirkeby's paintings can be seen as geological studies of the substance of art, addressing art and nature as parallel phenomena.
Kirkeby explains: “Geology is the study of the forces behind the forms, both the constructive and the destructive. And that entails a lot of assumptions [..] Because none of these forces can be observed. Small forces can be observed right up to earthquakes; we assume they are models. However, it is still an assumption that the gigantic forces to which the landscapes bear witness are a multiplication of the assumed models in terms of magnitude and time. Life is short.” (Per Kirkeby, quoted from: “La Città di Riga” in: ibid., Bravura. Ausgewählte Essays aus Bravura und Naturens blyant, Verlag Gachnang & Springer, Bern – Berlin, 1984, pp. 154-155).
Today, Kirkeby's impressive oeuvre of paintings is part of significant collections like the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Tate Modern, London, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. [KA]



124000989
Per Kirkeby
Ohne Titel, 2008.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 80,000 - 120,000

 
$ 88,000 - 132,000

Information on buyer's premium, taxation and resale right compensation will be available four weeks before the auction.