Abstraktion, Repraesentation, og Collage:Three Generations of Danish Artists.

Danish art? I can't say it's something I've devoted a lot of my life to thinking about. Or something I could proclaim either a great interest, or great knowledge in. But, earlier this year, I found myself at the Mayfair branch of the Victoria Miro gallery looking at some of it. I uploaded the photos with the intention of writing some kind of brief, fairly flippant, blog and then, well, I never got round to it.

But today I decided to return to my draft and have a crack at stringing a few words together. It's as much an exercise in memory recall as it is in art criticism or writing. So, there's a new challenge. I'm fifty-one. Remembering things isn't as easy as it used to be. Or at least it shouldn't be. I bought crumpets instead of a loaf of bread in the Co-Op this morning for example. But slights, rejections, and other instances of life going wrong? Oh, I remember them alright. Too bloody well.

Tal R - House red (2018)

The basic premise of the show was that the three contributing artist represent three different generations. There's Asger Jorn (1914-1973), Per Kirkeby (1938-2018), and Tal R who was born in 1978 and is the only one of the three who is still alive. They're almost all said to be both "non-conformist" and "polymaths" but I think that's something for the viewer, rather than the gallery curators, to decide. None of it's that out there. Some of it's a bit crap, actually. A lot of it.

I've put Tal R's House red at the top of the review because I think it's probably the best thing in the show. The expressive background reminds me of Van Gogh and, even more so, Tal R's fellow Scandinavian Edvard Munch although you could, if you squint, view it as a Danish riff on the work of Edward Hopper. 

Asger Jorn - Untitled (1943)

Tal R - Caravan (1998)

Elsewhere Tal R opts for pilfering from far more outsider and naive styles. If you were looking to find a sweet spot between Rose Wylie and the abstract expressionism of Willem de Kooning you could do worse than start with Caravan and Rosa road, painted twenty years apart but both employing broad strokes to give the impression of being painted with no formal training.

Asger Jorn and Per Kirkeby's works hew closer to this faux-idiot-savant style than they do to House red. Abstracted waterfalls, patchworks, blurry faces, and what's essentially scribbles and smudges smeared over the canvas aren't particularly unpleasant to look at, they don't offend, but they bring nothing new to the conversation. It's all been done before. Often a lot better.

Tal R - Rosa road (2018)

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (2004)

Per Kirkeby - Tre maend soger ruiner (1975-1977)

Tal R - punta de chroores (2006)

Tal R's decision to puncture his canvas with pins, Lucio Fontana's reminder board, at least gives the viewer something a touch more unusual to ponder and Per Kirkeby's fence was surprisingly delightful. The clearly defined blue works a treat against the vague wash of colours that make up the background.

Elsewhere though, it's pretty slim pickings. Nobody was making a claim that this was some kind of blockbuster show, and it was free to enter, but I have to call it as I see it and this was something of a dud. Perhaps that's why I took so long to getting round to writing about it.

Per Kirkeby - Stakit/Fence (1965-1966)

Asger Jorn - Black Iac Blues (1960)

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (1970)

Asger Jorn - Aurorapide (1967-1968)

Most of the works on show barely warrant a second glance. Their creators become irrelevant when we care so little about the work. Yeah, there's some nice colour in Jorn's Aurorapide and Kirkeby's 1970 untitled piece looks kind of pretty but these splashes of colour, these cut and pastes, these mocked up tribal faces, and these riffs on far far greater artists all get to look very samey, very tired, and very disappointing quite rapidly.

Tal R - Mayor (2001)

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (1963)

Tal R - Viva Ultra (2000)

Asger Jorn - Overlords and Underlings (1951)

Tal R - Fog over Malia bay (2012)

Tal R - Polish africa (1995-1998)

Asger Jorn - Le grande GR-solitaire (1964)

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (1963)

Asger Jorn - Midsummer Day Dream (1970)

I've not said a whole lot about the art or the artists because, quite frankly, it just wasn't good enough. There are really genuinely talented artists out there struggling, suffering even. To waste gallery space on crap like this is both bewildering and a little depressing. Must try harder.

Per Kirkeby - Untitled (1963)