Michael Otto Albert Kvium (born 15 November 1955) is a Danish artist. He has excelled in a number of fields such as painting, illustrating, sculpting and various performance genres. Since the early 1980s, he has created grotesque realistic works, depicting the darker side of life. [1]
Born in Horsens in the east of Jutland, Kvium studied painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts under Albert Mertz and Stig Brøgger. [2] His paintings and graphic works often resemble comic strip art or extensions of 17th-century Baroque paintings. They depict the more negative aspects of Western culture. [2] Motifs include grotesque monsters, half man half woman, sometimes approaching self-portraits. In 1981, together with Erik A. Frandsen and Christian Lemmerz, he was one of the cofounders of Værkstedet Værst, a collaborative workshop for performance art. [3] From the 1980s, his works include virus-like shapes as part of the growth cycles. Works from the 1990s also include bandaged figures depicting paralysis and claustrophobia as can be seen in Kor (1991). [1] Solo exhibitions at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (2006) and Ordrupgaard (2007) have included large works evoking relationships with the landscape and nature. His works also include videos, comic strips and performances. He has created stage sets in collaboration with Katrine Wiedemann. Together with Christian Lemmerz, in 2000 he created an eight-hour-long silent film titled The Wake inspired by James Joyce's Finnegans Wake . [1]
Kvium's works are included in the collections of many of Denmark's museums and galleries. [4]
In 2001, Kvium was awarded the Eckersberg Medal. [1] In 2010, he was decorated with the Order of the Dannebrog. [5]
Aarhus is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately 187 kilometres (116 mi) northwest of Copenhagen.
Peder Severin Krøyer, also known as P. S. Krøyer, was a Danish painter.
Anna Ancher was a Danish artist associated with the Skagen Painters, an artist colony on the northern point of Jylland, Denmark. She is considered to be one of Denmark's greatest visual artists.
The ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum is an art museum in Aarhus, Denmark. The museum was established in 1859 and is the oldest public art museum in Denmark outside Copenhagen. On 7 April 2004, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum opened with exhibitions in a brand new modern building, 10 stories tall with a total floor area of 20,700 m² and designed by Danish architects Schmidt Hammer Lassen. Today, ARoS is one of the largest art museums in Northern Europe with a total of 980,909 visitors in 2017.
Jens Ferdinand Willumsen was a Danish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, architect and photographer. He became associated with the movements of Symbolism and Expressionism.
Adam Saks is a Danish painter who lives and works in Berlin.
Peter Brandes is a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist and photographer.
Trine Søndergaard, is a Danish photography-based visual artist. Trine Søndergaard lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The Skagen Painters were a group of Scandinavian artists who gathered in the village of Skagen, the northernmost part of Denmark, from the late 1870s until the turn of the century. Skagen was a summer destination whose scenic nature, local milieu and social community attracted northern artists to paint en plein air, emulating the French Impressionists—though members of the Skagen colony were also influenced by Realist movements such as the Barbizon school. They broke away from the rather rigid traditions of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, espousing the latest trends that they had learned in Paris. Among the group were Anna and Michael Ancher, Peder Severin Krøyer, Holger Drachmann, Karl Madsen, Laurits Tuxen, Marie Krøyer, Carl Locher, Viggo Johansen and Thorvald Niss from Denmark, Oscar Björck and Johan Krouthén from Sweden, and Christian Krohg and Eilif Peterssen from Norway. The group gathered together regularly at the Brøndums Hotel.
Danish sculpture as a nationally recognized art form can be traced back to 1752 when Jacques Saly was commissioned to execute a statue of King Frederick V of Denmark on horseback. While Bertel Thorvaldsen was undoubtedly the country's most prominent contributor, many other players have produced fine work, especially in the areas of Neoclassicism, Realism, and in Historicism, the latter resulting from growing consciousness of a national identity. More recently, Danish sculpture has been inspired by European trends, especially those from Paris, including Surrealism and Modernism.
Jørgen Haugen Sørensen was one of Denmark's most eminent sculptors. He had his artistic debut at the acclaimed and prestigious Spring Exhibition (Forårsudstillingen) at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen in 1953. Haugen Sørensen was a member of the artistic union Decembristerne and the artist collective Grønningen, as well as Veksølund in Denmark.
The Esbjerg Art Museum is an independently owned art museum in Esbjerg in southwest Jutland, Denmark. Founded in 1910, in 1962 it moved into a new building in the City Park designed by Jytte og Ove Tapdrup. Since 1997, the museum has formed part of a complex which also contains the Esbjerg Performing Arts Centre.
Søren Hjorth Nielsen was a Danish painter and illustrator. He is remembered for his paintings of the allotments and outskirts of Copenhagen and later for his landscapes of the Bramsnæs Vig area in northwestern Zealand. He was a professor of painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1957 to 1971.
Christian Lemmerz is a German-Danish sculptor and visual artist who attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Carrara, Italy, from 1978 to 1982 and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1983 to 1988. Despite classical sculpture training in Carrara, Lemmerz drew his main inspiration from the post-war process-oriented pop art, not least from his fellow countryman, Joseph Beuys.
Lene Adler Petersen is a Danish artist. Her artistic practice is characterized through a continuous collecting, sorting and mixing process of media and techniques and includes happenings and performance art as well as painting, ceramics, drawings, printmaking and installations, film and photography.
Carl Krull is a contemporary Danish artist. Best known for his "seismic" approach to sculptural drawing and painting, Krull works in various media, including sculptural drawing, sculpture, printmaking, virtual reality, and digital media.
Erik August Frandsen is a Danish contemporary artist. In the early 1980s Erik A. Frandsen was part of the artistic movement de unge vilde and in 1981, he co-founded the artist collective Værkstedet Værst with prominent working with artists such as Lars Nørgård and Christian Lemmerz. He currently works from studios in Copenhagen, Nordfalster and Como, Italy.
Siegfried Wagner was a Danish sculptor.
Hunters of Skagen is a 1898 painting by artist Peder Severin Krøyer. It depicts a hunt on September 21, 1897. The work was sold to ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum in 1899 and has belonged to the museum ever since.