If you had to pinpoint any single year as defining Michael Kvium’s breakthrough on the Danish art scene, it has to be 1992. It was through the exhibition entitled “Arvtagerbilleder” (“heritage paintings”) presented by art dealer Franz Pedersen in Horsens in 1992 that the Danish art public woke up to him in earnest. The triptych going under the hammer is from 1992 and, together with the accompanying sketches, provides a fascinating glimpse into the creative process: the figures – their hands and feet tied together, locked into their own attempts to act – are isolated in their own nakedness, which, despite their physical nudity, could well be rather more a state of mind. The red, blue and green colours of the bandages in the triptych are reminiscent of the Renaissance masters who used the same palette and painting style for religious renditions. In Kvium’s interpretation, however, there is no god – just a number of figures, each having to do its best to balance the Fall and fight with the demons and conditions that define the times. In this sense, the work can almost be read as an altarpiece about the basic conditions of humanity today – the individual’s struggle to become free from inherited ties and patterns, and to challenge his own blindness and that of the times.