Michael Kvium (b. Horsens 1955)

“Erobringsbillede” (Picture of Conquest) from the series “Arvtagerbilleder” (Heir Images), 1992–1993. Signed, titled and dated on the reverse. 165×190 cm. Unframed.

It is a rare occasion and a joy to be able to present a monumental masterpiece of museum quality by the Danish artist Michael Kvium from his perhaps most important series from the early 1990s: the “Images of the Heir”. Here, Kvium establishes and in earnest makes manifest with superb technical skill his deeply original circle of motifs. These motifs have since made his art both the most radical and at the same time broadest eye of his generation on human existence itself and the challenges of modern life in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Few contemporary artists are able to match Michael Kvium in his ability to anchor his work in the rapid flow of time with a weight that is partly due to a picturesque talent in using art history going back centuries but also due to a subject matter that is often just as classic and universal as it is contemporary and current. Kvium's works are not images of 'others', they are confrontational images of (often very unflattering) aspects of ourselves – and himself – that are intended to make us think further about the world, life and our ways of acting. Kvium's relentless focus on human stupidity and folly will probably always split the audience. Yet, it is still as if in the light of Kvium's growing popularity one could present a slight paraphrase of the proverb that says: 'you love the one that hurts you the most'. Kvium does not let his audience off easy. With the suite of paintings called “Chóros”, which was created in 1991 for the exhibition rooms of the New Carlsberg Glyptotek, and the following series of “Images of the Heir” where this work belongs, Kvium hits on what has since become his most iconic signature: human-like figures in the middle of mysterious actions and/or poses on an enclosed and black picturesque background. When speaking about the “Images of the Heir”, the artist has told the art historian Lennart Gottlieb that a solid incentive was that he himself had become a father and with the series “tried (...) to create images that contained the biggest questions that he thought the son should also ask at some point in his life, the “Images of the Heir” was thus a 'a legacy to the future from the past' ”. (Gottlieb p. 106) In the collection at Horsens Art Museum, we find the related painting 'Handlingen’ (The Action) from 1992. In this painting, a crippled figure is in the process of reversing and converting the biblical miracle, where water was turned into wine. The point could be the simple but also complex belief that man's dealings with nature are anything but a refinement of it. In “Erobringsbillede” (Picture of Conquest), a scowling, bellicose figure has seized the painter Carl Fredrik Hill's work ”Flowering Fruit Tree" (1877). It is displayed sitting in a solitary spotlight like a trophy. That the chosen work of art is by Hill is without doubt symbolic. Hill (1849–1911) was a Swedish artist who until 1878, when he became incurably insane, painted predominantly bright, harmonious and idyllic images. After the onset of the disease, he changed style and painted, among other things, deformed human figures in mysterious landscapes that move between biblical floods and paradisiacal dreams.

Please note: The item is subject to the Anti-Money Laundering Act. In the event of a hammer price of DKK 50,000 or more, including buyer’s premium, the buyer must submit a copy of a valid photo ID and proof of address in order to collect the item.

Paintings & sculptures, 14 June 2022

Modern Paintings ▸ Modern art

800,000 DKK