Poul Gernes

Work "without a name" by Poul Gernes, 1965, Observatorieparken, Lund

Poul Gernes (born March 19, 1925 in Copenhagen , † March 22, 1996 in Sweden ) was a Danish artist . He was a co-founder of the alternative art school Eks-Skolen . His serial works between minimalism and pop art became known to a wide art audience outside Denmark after his death.

life and work

Poul Gernes was born in 1925 in Frederiksberg , a district of Copenhagen, into a family of craftsmen. His father was a shoemaker while his mother was a housewife. In 1943, at the age of 18, Gernes began an apprenticeship with a lithographer . Without further artistic training, he was able to make a living from his work as an artist and art teacher at a young age.

His work was shown publicly for the first time in autumn 1949: Gernes took part in the curated annual exhibition of the Free Association of Artists in Charlottenborg Palace . While his early work was still shaped by the influences of modernism , Gernes soon turned away from an individualistic art attitude. This can be seen in the context of the post-war period in Danish society, where great emphasis was placed on collectivist welfare systems. Gernes began designing consumer goods such as furniture, lamps, and wallpaper.

In 1961, together with the art historian Troels Andersen, he founded Den Eksperimenterende Kunstskole (Experimental Art School) in Copenhagen, which became known under the acronym Eks-Skolen . The Eks-Skolen was designed as an alternative to the traditional art academy in Copenhagen and quickly became a center of more socially conscious art as well as an anti-authoritarian form of teaching. Gernes was primarily responsible for teaching and developed the model of "anarchy under artistic responsibility". While the introspective moment of Abstract Expressionism at the Eks-Skolen was rejected, as was the artistic perfection of the French painting school, collective art production and art forms such as found objects and German Informel were in the foreground. The goal was not art for art's sake, but art for the benefit of society. In the early 1970s, the Eks-Skolen broke up.

In the 1970s, Poul Gernes primarily worked in artist groups and exhibited together with them. The most famous of these groups was Arm og Ben (Arms and Legs), which consisted of artists from the Eks-Skolen environment, including Per Kirkeby . With this Gernes produced from 1974 to 1976 the film Normannerne (The Normans). This - his only feature film length - is an allusion to the Vikings by Richard Fleischer to understand himself starred as an extra in the Gernes. In 1968 Gernes began designing the Copenhagen hospital in Herlev . The site-specific color scheme and decoration of the 25-story hospital occupied him until 1976. The entire hospital, including furnishings, was set in bright, bright and contrasting colors by Gernes. In the years that followed he designed many other buildings such as schools, cinemas and hotels in a similar style. From 1980 onwards, Gernes no longer painted any pictures in the traditional sense, but devoted himself exclusively to the site-specific design of public space. In addition, he was professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Art from 1985 to 1991 . He died in 1996 at the age of 71.

The best-known works by Gernes are his series of pictures from the 60s and 70s, which are reminiscent of Minimal and Pop Art . Circular shapes (often in the form of targets), numbers and letters are varied in it. The overall color impression is intentionally decorative. He used stencils to make his pictures and also enlisted the help of his family and assistants. While Gernes was known in the domestic art world throughout his life, after participating in the Biennale in 1988 he was relatively forgotten outside Denmark. In 2002 he became better known to a wider international audience with a retrospective at the Kunstverein Braunschweig , which was followed in 2007 by the exhibition of his works at documenta 12 , inspired by Cosima von Bonin . Gernes paid tribute to von Bonin in 2001 with brother Poul Stichting in See by integrating his works into her own.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions (selection)

• 2010: Poul Gernes - retrospective , Deichtorhallen , Hamburg.
• 2005: Poul Gernes - Graphic Works , Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, Aalborg .
• 2002: Poul Gernes - works from 1960 to 1996 , Kunstverein Braunschweig .
• 2001: Invitation to a cup of milk - and all the best from Poul Gernes , Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, Aalborg.
• 1999: Poul Gernes - Works from 1966–1968 , Galerie Mikael Andersen, Copenhagen.

Participation in group exhibitions (selection)

• 2007: documenta 12 , Kassel. The works Model for the water tower and Target Paintings were shown .
• 2007: Match Race - Modernistic remixes between now and then , Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, Aalborg
• 2007: Fish and Ships. Maritime in contemporary art , Kunsthaus Hamburg, Hamburg .
• 2007: Lund Konsthall 50 years , Lunds konsthal, Lund .
• 2005: Highlights , Statens Museum for Kunst , Copenhagen.
• 2004: Minimalism and After III - New Acquisitions , Daimler Contemporary, Berlin .
• 1988: Danish Pavilion, Venice Biennale .

Filmography

• 1963: Brækfilmen (German: Kotzfilm )
• 1967: Pouls Cirkelperformance (German: Circular Performance )
• 1967: Pouls Papirperformance (German: paper performance )
• 1968: Make
• 1976: Normannerne (German: The Normans ), together with Per Kirkeby
• 1978: Cairo
• 1979: Sko (German: shoes )
• 1994: Rum (German: space ), with Hans Erik Avlund Frandsen as the actor

Except for Normannerne , all films appeared on the DVD Films By And With Poul Gernes in 2007 .

Web links

• Biography and bibliography of Gernes on the website of the Klara Karoline Foundation he founded
• Literature by and about Poul Gernes in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Poul Gernes  in the German Digital Library
• Search for Poul Gernes in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
• Poul Gernes at artfacts.net
• Hans-Jürgen Hafner: Target the public . About Cosima von Bonin and Poul Gernes.
• Raimar Stange: Social colors, relational showering " spike art quarterly, issue 26, winter 2010
• Poul Gernes at the Ben Kaufmann Gallery, Berlin.
• Poul Gernes at the Mikael Andersen Gallery, Copenhagen.
• Materials by and about Poul Gernes in the documenta archive

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Normannerne on IMDb (accessed on May 20, 2008.)
2. ^ Esther Buss : Poul Gernes. That never got too colorful. In: Spex # 328 (September / October 2010), pp. 84ff.
3. ↑ ibid.
4. ↑ ibid.
5. ↑ Poul Gernes - Retrospective ( Memento of the original from July 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Deichtorhallen Hamburg, October 8, 2010 to January 16, 2011. (Accessed on August 2, 2010.)
6. ^ Poul Gernes - Graphic Works , Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, August 20 - November 20, 2005. Curated by Lars Morell. Available online  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Retrieved May 20, 2008.)  
7. ^ Poul Gernes - Works from 1960 to 1996 , Kunstverein Braunschweig, March 23rd - May 26th, 2002. Curated by Karola Grässlin. Catalog published by König, Cologne 2002. ISBN 3-88375-586-9 . Available online ( memento of the original from October 31, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Retrieved May 20, 2008.) 
8. ↑ Invitation til en kop mælk - og alt godt fra Poul Gernes . Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, June 16 - September 16, 2001. Curated by Erik Steffensen. Available online  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Retrieved May 20, 2008.)  
9. ↑ Poul Gernes - Works from 1966-1968 , Galerie Mikael Andersen, March 5 to April 17, 1999. Available online  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Retrieved May 20, 2008.)  
10. ^ Documenta 12 , Kassel. June 16 - September 23, 2007. About the works by Poul Gernes shown on the official documenta blog: Available online ( Memento of the original from November 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 20, 2008) 
11. ^ Fish and Ships. Maritime in contemporary art , Kunsthaus Hamburg, June 18 - August 26, 2007. TAZ from July 19, 2007 (accessed on May 20, 2008.)
12. ↑ Lund Konsthall 50 years , Lunds konsthal. March 31 - May 20, 2007. Available online ( memento of the original dated December 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Retrieved May 20, 2008.) 
13. ↑ Minimalism and After III - New Acquisitions , Daimler Contemporary, September 3 - November 28, 2004. Available online ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Retrieved May 20, 2008.) 
14. ^ Poul Gernes: Colore e spazio: Padiglione Danese, Biennale di Venezia 1988 . Committee for International Art Exhibitions, 1988. ISBN 8-750-37192-4 .
15. ^ Films By And With Poul Gernes • DVD