SILKEBORG.- Per Kirkeby (born in 1938) is one of the most important contemporary Danish artists. His oeuvre includes a very extensive body of painting, sculpture, film, prints, and literary works. While the paintings and the brick sculptures in particular have brought the artist international renown, Kirkeby’s prints have received little attention until now. With the exhibition Per Kirkeby Komplet Det raderede livsværk (Per Kirkeby Complete The Intaglio Prints) in the spring of 2015, Museum Jorn presents Per Kirkeby’s intaglio prints in their entirety, no less than 1,500 works from around 1962 to today that the artist gave to the museum over the course of the last 40 years.

The medium of intaglio printing played an important role for the artist ever since the beginning. Kirkeby experimented with this special technique of printing from the very beginning at Copenhagen’s Experimental Art School (Eks-skolen) in the early 1960s until now. In addition, he created intaglio prints in all sorts of formats (up to 2 meters in height) and reworked already used plates. During expeditions to Greenland, the Faeroe Islands, and Iceland, hand-sized printing plates were a fixed part of the trained geologist’s equipment.

In terms of content, Kirkeby’s prints usually reflect his observations of nature and its transformations. Per Kirkeby’s intense engagement with issues such as memory, materiality, and process in particular comes to expression in the artist’s intaglio prints. Per Kirkeby described his passion for intaglio printing as follows: “To me, intaglio prints are like diary entries. A few copper plates in my bag or backpack make me happy. Yet, unlike drawing with a pencil on paper, I only see the actual result when I apply the ink to the engraved plate and make a print. Discovering your own work is a remarkable experience. I hope that the viewers enjoy something similar.”