The art of doubling

The autonomy of the work

One of the classic art historical and literary controversies concerns how reasonable it is to read an artist's personal biography into his or her oeuvre. Is the work to be considered self-constituted when it leaves the studio, or is it "acceptable" to involve its maker's doings in the interpretation?

In the self-portrait, this controversy is suspended for a while, since the artist obviously exposes himself – or does he? Kurt Trampedach's monumental self-portrait with sunglasses challenges the idea of being an unobserved observer within the private sphere of the artist. We may see a figure that resembles Trampedach, and he may allow us to look at him, but the stern gaze directed right back at us suddenly turns all the questions around. The aloof attitude is emphasized by the sunglasses and the cross-legged sitting posture. Is it perhaps really the other way around? Are we actually being contemplated and subjected to the scrutinizing gaze of an artist who lives in his own work? Should we rather focus on the highly elaborate, textual background and substitute our preference for interpretation with an aesthetic and perceptual openness? These are but a few of the many questions raised by this impressive painting measuring 210 x 245 cm.

"A glimpse into the dream" 

Trampedach's consistent self-portrait is accompanied by a smaller work that is simply perfect in its technical and artistic execution. In sketching and line alike, "A glimpse into the dream" is reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's art. It also suggests Rembrandt's staging of himself in his work. The indistinct calligraphic elements of the composition increase the enigmatic character of the painting and add to the viewer's sense of wonderment at the unsolved mystery it seems to contain.

Doubling

Like Kurt Trampedach, Michael Kvium has incorporated elements of the self-portrait in a number of his paintings. Several of his grotesque figures and notably their faces evince a certain similarity to the artist's own appearance, challenging the boundaries between artist and work.

In the large oil painting offered for sale at this auction, however, it is the theme of doubling that that is crucial. In several of Kvium's works, this theme appears as a reflection that creates a redundancy in the motif and emphasizes the condition the artist seeks to evoke: Figures who are frozen in a particular action or somehow appear to suffer from a diminished ability to act because of their tied up limbs or, as in the present motif, a pair of hand puppets that give rise to ambiguous associations. The viewer is deliberately left in a state of wonderment and in a limbo of interpretation: Is Kvium staging some kind of twisted mother fixation, or have the "marionettes" grown into the puppeteer? Numerous doublings and oppositional entities are brought to oscillate between power and powerlessness, action and resignation in Kvium's universe. The painting presented here was part of the large frieze that was the very first work you saw at Kvium's impressive ARoS exhibition in 2006.

Niels Strøbek's "The Rich and the Lean" from 1970 is not a (self-)portrait, but it, too, works with the ambiguity of interpretation in its visual expression. This elaborate still life consists of two interconnected paintings that merit a second look because of their compositional complexity. Works by Strøbek are rarely seen at auctions, so this naturalistic masterwork is yet another good reason to begin the new year by visiting the preview and the auction in Vejle!

Preview: Friday 23 January - Monday 26 January

Auction: Tuesday 27 January from 11 am

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