Carl Fredrik Hill
Hill Hill Hill Hill Hill
Karl Holmqvist
Give Posters a Try
Sora Kim
Three Foot Walking
Silke Otto-Knapp
Geography and Plays
20 September–17 November 2013
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Nyhavn 2
1051 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Autumn at Kunsthal Charlottenborg offers four solo exhibitions by internationally renowned artists: Silke Otto-Knapp, Sora Kim and Karl Holmqvist and the deceased Swedish painter Carl Fredrik Hill, four artists whose artistic production is mutually interrelated—both through their choices of materials and design, and thematically.
Carl Fredrik Hill (1849-1911, Sweden): Although Carl Fredrik Hill is one of Sweden’s most renowned painters, this is the first time since 1973 that a large exhibition has been devoted to Hill in Denmark. Nature is a recurrent theme for Hill: Tranquil, beautiful landscapes with perfected details and harmonious colours. At the age of 28, he suffered a psychosis that changed his practice significantly. In subsequent periods Hill was marked by a schizophrenic mind, and this finds an almost direct reflection in his choice of subject, which begins to involve abstractions and crowds, with a special focus on existential turbulence and the duel between calm and chaos.
In the exhibition Hill Hill Hill Hill Hill, which consists of 97 drawings and a single painting, one room is dedicated to drawings of chaotic human bodies, one to nature drawings, and the last to the painting Det ensamma trädet (The Lonely Tree) from 1878. The exhibition has been created in close collaboration with Malmö Art Museum, which holds the largest and most unique collection of works by Carl Fredrik Hill, and from where the works have been selected and loaned.
Karl Holmqvist (b. 1964, Sweden): Karl Holmqvist works with words. Via words in books, in performances, on posters and in sounds, he examines the meaning formation, origins and usage of words. He has been doing this for almost twenty years under the slogan, mantra and challenge Give Poetry a Try, which on the occasion of this exhibition has become Give Posters a Try.
A gigantic hanging of 71 different black and white posters forms the focal point of the Holmqvist exhibition, which is situated in the large central hall of the South Wing. The posters have been pasted onto the walls from floor to ceiling, like a flickering black and white wallpaper in words and images. The exhibition also includes three video works: I’M WITH YOU IN ROCKLAND (2005), I’LL MAKE THE WORLD EXPLODE (2008) and A IS FOR A-R-A-K-A-W-A (2012).
Sora Kim (b. 1965, Korea): Sora Kim’s practice is diverse, with a conceptual approach to video, installation and performance. She examines the cultural and natural encodings of human (bodily) expression and behaviour, and through her works, she encourages reflection on the way people act and interact in given surroundings. The expression is minimalist, with subtle shifts in the familiar, and spatial experiences that build upon resonance and timbre—the invisibly sensuous.
The exhibition Three Foot Walking includes three new, site-specific commissions specially produced by Sora Kim for Charlottenborg. Exhibition supported by Art Council Korea.
Silke Otto-Knapp (b. 1970, Germany): Silke Otto-Knapp’s paintings are characterised by graphic lines and opaque surfaces with staged representations of figures and landscapes. The exhibition Geography and Plays displays a selection of these works, which could be regarded as entering into a dialogue with Hill Hill Hill Hill Hill.
Silke Otto-Knapp works with watercolours on canvas in an almost monochromatic spectrum: a choice of materials that allows the building up of the complex, semi-transparent, layered surfaces that characterise her landscapes. Based on documentation of performances by for instance the Ballet Russes in the 1920s, the Judson Dance Theatre in the 1960s or contemporary choreographers, Silke Otto-Knapp has also painted formations and tableaus formed by the bodies of the choreographed dancers. The monumentality and formalised ritual of the choreography is translated into almost abstract elements that create a contrast to the otherwise fragile expression.
The exhibitions are supported by the Danish Arts Council.
