Per Kirkeby / Lawrence Weiner

Per Kirkeby and Lawrence Weiner have known each other for many years. The idea of making a collaborative work and an exhibition together already evolved in the mid eighties, but due to practical reasons the project was not realized back then. Last year during the fall, the idea returned to us in a new form, and we decided together with the artists that now was the time to make it happen. In other words, it is an exhibition with a long history that is now suddenly becoming a reality. Per Kirkeby shows two brick works built directly within the gallery space. One work is a tall stele with a deep niche, a black line or a "metaphysical shadow" running vertically through it. The design of the stele refers to an identical model built in the garden behind Kirkeby's studio at Lćsř in the early eighties, but in this new context the stele is realized as a free standing autonomous work. The other piece is a monumental quadrangular block, an open/closed building or, if you will, a hollow slightly rotten tree. This new installation is made in collaboration with Lawrence Weiner, who has contributed with texts across the inner and outer brick walls, so that words, matter and space overlap and transform the whole. Lawrence Weiner is also showing two other textbased sculptures made site specifically for the gallery space.