KunstenaarDanish
Per Kirkeby
2 actieve items
Per Kirkeby (1 September 1938, Copenhagen, 9 May 2018, Copenhagen) trained as a geologist before becoming one of Denmark's most internationally recognized artists of the twentieth century. He completed a master's degree in arctic geology at the University of Copenhagen in 1964, and his scientific grounding in stratigraphy, glaciology and the deep history of the earth remained a persistent undercurrent in all his work. While still a student, in 1962, he enrolled at the Experimental Art School (Eks-skolen) in Copenhagen, where he encountered the full range of postwar avant-garde practice.
During the 1960s Kirkeby worked in performance, film and happenings, collaborating with Fluxus figures including Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman. By the 1970s he had turned toward painting and became associated with the neo-expressionist generation that included Georg Baselitz and A.R. Penck. His canvases are densely worked, with thick, gestural strokes in earth tones punctuated by black outlines that hold organic forms, trees, rock strata and half-emergent figures at the boundary between figuration and abstraction. He also began making large brick sculptures in 1973, starting with a structure in Ikast, Jutland, and continued producing architecturally scaled works for public spaces across Europe, including at Humlebæk Station adjacent to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Kirkeby taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe from 1978 to 1989 and at the Städelschule in Frankfurt from 1989 to 2000. He was a prolific writer and poet, and collaborated with filmmaker Lars von Trier, creating chapter headings and visual sequences for Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Antichrist. He also designed sets and costumes for New York City Ballet productions in 1999 and 2007. His work entered the collections of the Tate, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. He represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 1976, 1980, 1993, 1997 and 2005. In 2013 he suffered a serious brain injury and was unable to paint before his death in Copenhagen in May 2018.
Kirkeby's auction market is centered on Scandinavia, particularly at Bruun Rasmussen, where his paintings and prints trade in volume. Untitled paintings have reached 360,000 NOK in the Nordic region and his graphic works sell in the 12,500 to 19,500 DKK range. Internationally his record stands at 547,287 USD for an untitled canvas at Christie's London in 2019. Prints remain accessible entry points while major canvases draw institutional-level competition.