Exhibited: “Krop og Kunst”, Golden Days in Copenhagen, Bruun Rasmussen, September, 2009. Provenance: Galleri Faurschou, Copenhagen.

Following the “Circus Humanus” exhibition at Aarhus Art Museum in 1997 - and not least the sculpture entitled “Social Sculpture”, which consisted of floating and entangled naked bodies rendered in rubber - Michael Kvium created a series of large paintings on the same theme, including “Circus Humanus III”, which was acquired by the Danish Arts Foundation (Statens Kunstfond). The painting “Yellow Socks Paint-ing” shows (parts of) nine of the artist's characteristic androgynous human figures levitating or descending in an open space that transcends the boundaries of the canvas. Several of the figures are depicted entering the picture while others are exiting in a way that suggests that what we are really seeing is a very small and random excerpt of an, in principle, endless and absurd existential situation. The painting in question is, as is so often the case with the artist, a very direct and confrontational comment on the human condition and our deeds and ill deeds. However, the painting is not without clemency or humour. We are as humans, despite our apparent lack of greater purpose and free will, socially interdependent and all in the same boat.