MUNICH.- Per Kirkeby (*1938 in Copenhagen) is internationally the most important representative of contemporary Scandanavian art. The prospective geologist joined the Experimental Art School in Copenhagen in 1962 and developed a multifaceted pictorial language using the most varied of artistic media that revolves around metamorphoses in nature. In so doing, Kirkeby always emphasises his self-understanding as a painter.

The three-dimensional works he has been making in cast bronze since the early 1980s, along with his famous brick sculptures, are also to be seen against this background. At the beginning of Kirkeby’s artistic career he built up an extensive œuvre of prints that holds its own on a par with his works in other media.

This exhibition juxtaposes a number of drypoint prints and woodcuts with a series of bronze sculptures and is the first to adopt this focus. Miniature woodcuts from the late fifties that have recently resurfaced are now being shown for the first time. Through their various pronounced haptic qualities, something sensual can be perceived in the different materials that unites the tactile surfaces of the graphic works with those of the sculptures to create an idiosyncratic correlation. The latent tendency to metamorphosis merges with the lyrically hued tone which also echoes the colours in the artist’s paintings.