Per Kirkeby

Per Kirkeby – Geology studies; the turn to experimental art

Per Kirkeby was born Per Christensen on 1 September 1938 in Copenhagen. His career was initially not that of an artist; he studied arctic geology at the university in his hometown with a particular scientific interest in the history of the earth of the ice ages, and actually graduated, in contrast to many of his fellow artists. His first expedition as a geologist was to Narssaq in Greenland, and further excursions took place in the years that followed. Per Kirkeby’s steadily growing interest in art led him to join the artist group Den Eksperimenterende Kunstskole in 1962, even before he had completed his doctorate. The group had been newly founded by the art historian Troels Andersen and artist Poul Gernes. He experimented early on with graphics and installations and participated in ‘Happenings’ alongside artists such as Joseph Beuys, Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik and Jörg Immendorf. 

Germany as a centrepoint of artistic realisation

Following the exciting early phase of his career as an artist, Per Kirkeby focused on drawings, initially orienting himself towards Pop Art and rejecting abstraction, especially Informel painting. In 1966 he created the first brick sculptures for which he is still known today, and in 1968 produced his first short film in the style of Andy Warhol. The artist was also politically engaged and supported the aims of the ’68 movement. As well as a number of other films, Kirkeby also undertook further study trips which took him as far as the Mayan places of worship in Central America. In the mid-1970s, Kirkeby created his first oil paintings and in doing so, made an artistic about-turn towards abstraction, which he had previously so explicitly disregarded. Germany took on an important place in his life; he took on a teaching position at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe as early as 1978, and later moved to the famous Städelschule in Frankfurt. Kirkeby himself stated that it was only in Germany that he matured into a world artist – a noteworthy statement from a man whose self-confidence was proverbial and who praised himself unabashedly as a really good painter. 

Large format sculptures in the public space

Per Kirkeby pushed into the public sphere with his large-format sculptures and installations; in Germany, he created a brick wall over four floors in Berlin’s government district as an architectural monument. Per Kirkeby has received prizes and awards for his art including a DAAD bursary in 1982 and the Henrik-Steffens Prize of the Hamburg Alfred Toepfer Foundation F. V. S. which is committed to European understanding and cultural diversity. After a fall in early 2015, Kirkeby could no longer practice as a painter and even before that, a brain hemorrhage had imposed severe limitations on him. As a result, he endeavored to explore art in a theoretical way, writing books on El Greco and Pablo Picasso. 

Per Kirkeby died in his hometown of Copenhagen on 9 May 2018.