Tag: Peter Callesen
Peter Callesen: Skin of Paper
With his tragicomic performances, impressive installations and not least his fascinating and poetic paper cuttings, Peter Callesen has gained a position as one of today´s most courageous, subtle and imaginative Danish contemporary artists. The exhibition Skin of Paper for the first time brings together a major selection of new works as well as earlier productions at a Copenhagen venue.
With his new works, referring to the architecture of Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Peter Callesen opens the door to a spectacular and existential universe of magic and fragile paper cuttings. The main elements of the exhibition are a site specific paper construction and a grand cardboard building: statements that include the building as a metaphor for the human self. The latter work, the central My Castle, in its construction refers to the church towers of Nikolaj and consists of labyrinthine passages where direct references can be found to Callesen´s modus operandi through a series of art videos and documentations of his performances. A common feature in many of these performances is the heroic endeavor to achieve and conquer the impossible, as well as a humorous picture and a debunking of the stereotyped masculinity. A trip around the nooks and corners of the castle thus also becomes a trip in Peter Callesen´s inner universe of intricate and impossible dreams.
The work White Window plays with a veiling of the borderline between the architecture of the Art Center and the porous, fragile shell of the work itself. It has been made specifically for Nikolaj´s church space and is a nearly 1:1 copy of the large window at the back of the Lower Gallery, consisting solely of 264 sheets of A4 paper – sketches and copies of earlier works. In the side aisle of the gallery, the work White Diary is presented, an elaborate paperwork wondrously detailing the reflections, fantasies and physical features to be found in the human head. There are furthermore 20 A4 paper sculptures, each of them evoking fantastic images and humorous narratives.
Peter Callesen´s ability to create stories and dramaturgies out of a humble A4 sheet of paper with great technical skill, finesse and contemplation has made him a unique and notable artist on both the Danish and international art scene.
Studio visit Peter Callesen
Peter is working on his show to march @ Kunsthallen Nikolaj…. It looks BIG::::…
New Book – Peter Callesen:::…
The book ″Out of Nothing ⁄ Ud af Intet″ about the danish comtemporary artist Peter Callesen has been published in relation to a touring solo exhibition showing Peter Callesen´s paper work in 4 different Scnadinavian art museums: The Museum of Relgious Art (Lemvig, Denmark), Trapholt Art Museum (Kolding, Denmark), Mjelby Art Museum (Halmstad, Sweden) and Haugar Vestfold Art Museum (Tønsberg, Norway)
The book includes 80 color photographs of Peter Callesen´s most important paper works and installations. The book takes us all the way from Peter Callesen´s early performances to his most recent paper works. With his subtle paper cuts that often deal with the large subjects in life, Peter Callesen´s works generate both smiles and reflection. The book includes articles written by Museum Director Gerd Rathje, Museum Manager Anni Nørskov and an interview with the artist himself. The book is a hardcover and the text is in english as well as in danish.
Peter´s short statement: ″Lately I have worked almost exclusively with white paper in different objects, paper cuts, installations and performances. A large part of my work is made from A4 sheets of white paper. It is probably the most common and consumed media used for carrying information today, but we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper. The A4 paper is perhaps as close to nothing as you can get. Using this worthless material gives me as artist a greater freedom to deal with heavy subjects and to fill the paper with more dramatic stories.″
The book is available at museums where Peter Callesen is showing and online at: Museum Tusculanum PressNew Book.
Christmas Group Show @ Galleri Christina Wilson
Artist news:::..
Out of nothing / Ud af Intet
Peter Callesen is showing at The Museum of Religious Art, Lemvig, Denmark
September 19th — November 15th 2009
Opening reception: Saturday the 19th September 2009, 11 AM
at The Museum of Religious Art, Lemvig, Strandvejen 13, 7620 Lemvig, tel. + 45 97810371
Can a plain A4 sheet of paper animate tragedies and comedies? Peter Callesen′s hands can. With his technical brilliance and his subtle instinct for the fragility and bewitching potential of human life as well as of the material, he carves meaningful stories out of something as ordinary as the white paper from the printer tray.
Peter Callesen is an outstanding figure in Danish contemporary art. In particular, it is his talent for developing both humorous and suggestive stories out of paper that attracts well–deserved attention. With a knife and an unerring command of the composition he transforms the plain A4 sheet into tales and visual play on words rising from the sheet.
In his paper works Peter Callesen demonstrates that the flatness of paper can rise into a living three–dimensional picture. The pictures he creates out of paper are multi–dimensional in the sense that there is both a positive and a negative form, in which the silhouette, the absent picture, is often the most intense expression. Similarly, the unfolding tale is equivocal, stretched between the strivings of hope and the gravity of reality.
Peter: ″I think the transformation from two–dimensionality to three–dimensionality is almost magic. This is not to say that I am a magician. For me the challenge is to create something out of an ordinary flat sheet of paper. I examine how paper is expanded beyond its natural size and beyond its inherent nature. Like the conjurer I do not put all my cards on the table. I prefer something to be hidden or not immediately intelligible.. But symbolically and as far as meaning goes I work with magic and with the impossible.″
For this exhibition Peter Callesen has made some works which reflect on religion in general and specifically on stories and motives from the Bible. In a series of framed papercut, which take their inspiration from old iconic paintings, Callesen reflects on themes such as The Fall of Man, suffering, resurrection and he asks the question whether it is possible to create a meaningfull image of God today?
The show will later tour to Trapholt Artmuseum in Kolding, Denmark, November 25th — November 1st 2010, Mjelby Artmuseum, Halmstad, Sweden, September — October 2010 and Haugar , Vestfold Artmuseum in Norway January — March 2011
A new book ″Out of Nothing″ will be launched for the opening, showing both new and old works by Peter Callesen and with two essays by arthistorian Anni Nørskov and Gerd Rathje and an interview with the artist. The book will soon be available through Peter Callesens website.