Per Kirkeby Interview: We build upon ruins

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9 жыл бұрын

Find out why this renowned artist destroys his own paintings if they are too beautiful. Watch the interview with the acclaimed Danish artist Per Kirkeby (b.1938 - d.2018), about building art on the ruins of your ideas.
”An ornament is something which repeats itself endlessly. In a way you can say life is like that. It’s an eternal appearance of exactly the same things.” The painter, poet, filmmaker and sculptor Per Kirkeby (b.1938 - d.2018) was one of the most acclaimed contemporary Danish artists. With a masters in arctic geology from 1964, Kirkeby’s interest in geology and nature in general has played a crucial role in his artistic expressions. In this interview Kirkeby talks about how the arrogance of age means that you don’t have to fulfill any expectations anymore, not your own, and not other peoples expectations: “You don't have to give a toss.” Kirkeby says. Once you let go of your own expectations, it becomes possible to exceed them. You achieve complete artistic freedom.
“My painting isn’t good until it goes under,” Kirkeby explains. The original intention, the smart and clever beginning, is not enough to make a painting. Beauty is not enough. There must be something more, a structure. You must commit yourself, and risk everything, sacrifice the good, and go through a process of recognition, until something better is created, built upon the ruins of the original idea: “The right structure slowly emerges from the picture.”
Per Kirkeby (b.1938 - d.2018) is considered one of the most renowned artists of his generation, his skills as a painter, sculptor, filmmaker, and author making for a body of strong and unique works. His work has been shown at exhibitions worldwide including at prominent institutions such as Kunsthalle Bern, Whitechapel Gallery and Tate in London, MoMA in New York, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk and Centre Pompidou in Paris. In 1976 he represented Denmark in the Venice Biennale. Moreover, Kirkeby taught as a professor at the Art Academy in Karlsruhe and at Frankfurter Städelschule.
Per Kirkeby was interviewed by Poul Erik Tøjner at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, May 2008.
Camera: Bøje Lomholdt
Edited by: Pernille Bech Christensen and Martin Kogi
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2014
Supported by Nordea-fonden

Пікірлер: 25

@AssociationEpione31 5 жыл бұрын

Fascinating artist and intelligent work. ' A good painting with holes is better than a bad one without holes.'

@tonsfocus 7 жыл бұрын

(Second passage) My painting isn’t good until it goes under. I mean that the original intention, the smart and clever - that you always have when you start on a painting… The first evening I think it’s all great, intelligent and clever. The next morning I can see that it’s not enough to make a painting. Paintings which are done like this and just look pretty - and grippingly colouristic, that’s not enough - if there is no structure within, a solid skeleton. I cannot start by making this structure. The right structure slowly emerges from the picture. I often start my paintings by wiping my brush on the canvas. This creates a kind of mashed potatoes or swamp. I want to get to the point where I control that. Or put it under some kind of control - which is not rigid, but rather a commitment. I have to commit myself to this potato mash. I do that by keeping on painting. Along the way I alternate - between premeditated interventions, which nearly always go under… So the control, as I called it, emerges from the nature of the painting itself. I think painters are really good at daring. Risking something which at first glance looks good, also to me. “Now I can put it with the finished paintings.” But it’s always taken up again, and I sacrifice what was good. As a painter you constantly want to overcome your own virtuosity, but at the same time you strive for virtuosity. Interviewer: And what lies beneath that? A process of recognition? Yes. And that something must have a price. I prove to myself that it has a price. That thing about painting over what looks good at first glance. But one builds on ruins. And something even better is created.

@davidmagoon2562 Жыл бұрын

What delighted me about this interview, is that the interviewer seemed to persist in trying to analyze, contextualize, and make sense of the work, while the interviewee bent and squirmed and effectively escaped from any box he and his paintings were being put in. I found it amusing and kind of meta somehow.

@tonsfocus 7 жыл бұрын

Thank you so very much for this excellent interview with a giant in the painting world. I typed up two passages for easy cut-and-paste sharing. When you look outside, you never see clearly or innocently. People carry a lot of baggage. Interviewer: But aren’t there more layers? I mean, I look outside - and I see the trees and the light. That’s what I see first. Then I start looking for a kind of system. Those leaves are hanging down because the trunk ends there. But I don’t see that first. What I see first is innocent, in a way. So to what extent or when - is the innocence of the first observation replaced by structure? When I paint and repeat the same things over and over again, I see them quicker in nature. So this profession has a certain loss of innocence, if you will. Interviewer: Do you really need to see any more? Do you have to look at the garden? Yes, absolutely.

@SA-xg5eo 5 жыл бұрын

tonsfocus I had it in mind to pick out this bit from the interview too. Thank you.

@cheeiar 4 жыл бұрын

Great artist. Wonderful interview. Thanks.

@palaceofknots 9 жыл бұрын

thanks to you folks for this introduction to this great artist

@palaceofknots 9 жыл бұрын

the visuals at the end pack a very powerful punch!

@lucretiaonutube 4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for this - great interview.

@aryehfinklestein9041 6 жыл бұрын

Thankyou for introducing me to a wonderful artist. I found it fascinating ( at 2:05 ) that the painter himself says, looking at a large work, "it's striking that there's this openness in the middle...", as if referring to a piece by someone else.

@olusha 7 жыл бұрын

Beautiful thank you very much

@soohahn 2 жыл бұрын

Great interview

@rte66pawnshop 5 жыл бұрын

When they arrive at, one way or another; "...being a painter is a shitty job" (and they all do), you know they're good. Interesting sculpture, too! Hope to see it all someday. RIP.

@petrvaclavek8259 8 жыл бұрын

pro mě Kirbey překvapení a jeho obrazy super.

@olusha 7 жыл бұрын

Ano- máš pravdu

@MrFalckenhagen 4 жыл бұрын

Ich bin begeistert.

@DS-xy1rg 5 жыл бұрын

Important à savoir

@lordspucke8938 6 жыл бұрын

sad news today.please paint heaven green mr.kirkeby

@jdemeulenaer123 6 жыл бұрын

WHEN HE SAYS that as an artist you never know whether you are governed by content or by the structure"....this simply means that you are governed by intuition and emotions..in intuition and emotions there are no structure nor there are content....Right sir..?

@markuspietari 5 жыл бұрын

No, that’s superficial. Acknowledging that you’re not in full control of the painting in formation is an essential part of the process. Same as in writing, etc. That’s always true in some extent, no matter how much you try to control the process.

@humfreycollins2422 Жыл бұрын

The Emperor's New Clothes

@MatthewBrowne1959 Жыл бұрын

Oh dear....another uninformed philistine rears their head. Better sink down again and stay out of sight.

@uw4ntsum342 Жыл бұрын

4:55 When Per talks about "insight" the translation does not properly convey what he means. 'Insikt' is more a notion than an intelligent deduction. Instinctual, not logical. What I gather from his description of the process is that he tries to rid himself of the trappings of the active mind and instead uses his subconscious. A practice of Jungiang philosophy I think and the fact that he's been able develop a method out of it speaks to the genius.