A trained geologist, Kirkeby (1938-2018) began his artistic production as a draftsman during expeditions to Greenland, where he sketched valleys, mountains and bodies of ice.
The exhibition, which will be presented in Rooms 1 and 2 from July 13 to October 15, 2023, includes sculptures, drawings and paintings.
For the first time in Latin America, the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Mexico and the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal) present the Danish poet, painter and sculptor Per Kirkeby at the Tamayo Museum.
“Per Kirkeby. Evocation of Posterity” takes as its starting point a series of pieces that the Copenhagen-born artist produced in the 1970s, after his trip to Mayan archaeological sites in 1971.
A trained geologist, Kirkeby (1938-2018) began his artistic production as a draftsman during expeditions to Greenland, where he sketched valleys, mountains and bodies of ice. These types of excursions became a central part of his creative practice and he carried them out until the last decades of his career.
These trips soon became a central aspect of his creative output and, practically parallel to this training, he was also part of the Eks-skolen (School of Experimental Art), one of Denmark’s most cutting-edge art training centers in the 1960s. There he began to experiment with pictorial themes and techniques, as well as with different processes and materials, explorations that he maintained throughout his career.
The exhibition explores the dialogues between his brick sculptures, architectural drawings and paintings. Seemingly minimalist, the sculptures are explorations of form and structure, and how walking alongside them changes our perception of the space and light that surrounds them. They are also ambiguous in the sense that they are reminiscent of ruins, but could also be unfinished constructions or buildings that rise from the ground. The paintings, in turn, with their almost expressionist style, explore how landscapes can be represented showing only traces of their elements, be they geological, watery, vegetal, or their movement.
About the artist, Andrés Valtierra, curator of the exhibition, says: “Kirkeby was especially interested in how we inhabit natural terrains and modify them through architecture. He also considered each type of construction as an accumulation of material, formal, and symbolic layers. Metaphorically, this resembles them to geological formations.
The exhibition offers the Mexican public the opportunity to learn about his career of more than sixty years. At the same time, it invites you to immerse yourself in the evolution of his work and in his deep interest in the relationship between nature, architecture and culture.
By connecting architecture, geology, deep time and the contemplation of nature, Kirkeby’s work encourages reflections on how we relate to natural spaces and the fact that our actions have lasting effects in environments that have existed since time immemorial. .
The Tamayo Museum appreciates the support of the Michael Werner Gallery, the Danish Embassy in Mexico, the Danish Ministry of Culture, the Susanne Ottesen Gallery and the Danish Art Fund to carry out this exhibition.
In addition to the inauguration that will take place this Thursday, July 13 at 6:00 p.m., the Tamayo Museum is currently presenting three other temporary exhibitions: “Cultivate. Tribute to Carla Stellweg”, “The paradoxes of internationalism (narrated by the collection from the Tamayo Museum)” and “Tamayo. Variations”. Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
2023-07-13 21:43:10
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