The brick sculptures are central to Per Kirkeby’s (1938-2018) extensive and varied oeuvre. A few years before his death, Kirkeby consented to the posthumous rebuilding of the brick sculptures thus making it possible for ARKEN to exhibit a selection of these impressive and thought-provoking sculptures.

Per Kirkeby created the first of more than 150 brick sculptures in 1966, and in 1973 the first large sculpture was constructed in a public space. The exhibition at ARKEN thus marks the 50th anniversary of the construction of Kirkeby’s first monumental brick sculpture. The exhibition includes, among other things, the construction of unrealized brick sculptures that exist only as sketches and architectural drawings.

The exhibition is exhibited in ARKEN’s Art Axis; the museum’s 150-metre-long exhibition space, where the brick sculptures will enter into a dialogue with ARKEN’s architecture – staged as a city with the sculptures being constructed before the museum audience and continually activated by the museum and its visitors during the exhibition period. In the adjacent gallery, the museum will be the first art institution to recreate a special brick scenography in bricks created by Per Kirkeby in 1992 for the performance Iphigenia auf Tauris by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Per Kirkeby, 2019. Photo: Joris Cerstiaens