Literature: Ane Hejlskov Larsen: “Per Kirkeby - Malerier 1957–1977”, Borgen, Copenhagen, 2002, no. M 287 a-k. Literature: “Per Kirkeby: Kunstausstellung der Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen”, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Germany, 1994, part of the series ill. in the catalogue. Exhibited: “Per Kirkeby, Bjørn Nørgaard, Lene Adler Petersen”, Århus Kunstbygning, January 11–26, 1975. Provenance: Svend Hansen, Jysk Kunst Galerie, Copenhagen. Provenance: Private collection, Herning, Denmark (registered here by Ane Hejlskov Larsen in 1992). Provenance: Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers, auction 692, Copenhagen, April, 2001, cat. no. 70. Provenance: Private collection, Denmark / Italy.

The format and combined structure of the 11 separate and individually signed pieces of art from 1974 are enough to make it a spectacular rarity in Kirkeby's production. The exact circumstances, conditions and ideas behind the work's creation and specific design are not documented, but the work was exhibited in its totality in the Århus Kunstbygning in 1975, where Per Kirkeby participated together with his colleagues, Lene Adler Petersen (b. 1944) and Bjørn Nørgaard (b. 1947). Overall, these are 11 heterogeneous – stylistically highly varied motifs – mounted in integrated frames designed by the artist. The frames can best be described as variations or displacements across a theme of gold and black colours adorned with changing geometric basic shapes.

The 1970s represent a transition in Kirkeby's production from the 1960s “European Pop Art” with the use of lacquer paint, emphasis on the seriality and (re)use of ambiguous cultural templates and references to a more personal, abstract-spontaneous, nature-based and romantic idiom. As early as the 1960s, Kirkeby – in addition to painting – experimented with the exhibition format itself and created ‘installation environments’, for instance in 1965 where the series of iconic “Stakitbilleder” (Fence Paintings) is exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. The 1970s is also a period in which Kirkeby is deeply interested in the ‘museum’ as a concept – the museum’s way of positioning, presenting and conveying content or meaning. That of creating a seemingly logical and progressive timeline in events and effects that actually have a complex background.

It seems apt to see this work as an extension of the Fence Paintings’ variation over a continous form and as an expression of pictorial opposites such as ‘formalistic/picturesque’, ‘anonymous/personal’, ‘pure/unclean’. However, the work also seems to have some connection to the series of Per Kirkeby's so-called ‘museum exhibitions’ in the 1970s. In contrast to Bjørn Nørgaard and Lene Adler Petersen, who with performance art like “The Female Christ – The Stock Exchange Event” (1969) and “The Horse Slaughtering” (1970) attacked the institution itself and the concept of art, Kirkeby arranged exhibitions inside the museum – both with his own works and existing museum artifacts. This as a study of the museum as a historical and aesthetic entity – in the words of the artist’s biographer, Ane Hejlskov Larsen, it is more a poetic commentary on the concept of art and the collection principles than an attack on the institution of art itself.

Some parts of the work here lean towards the classically scenic, other parts resemble a purely picturesque process. Some parts have spatiality and colour perspective, other parts highlight the surface. Thus, on the one hand, the work postulates or establishes an order or connection, which on the other hand it does everything to challenge or destroy.