Peter Bonde. Three Poles and a Sculpture

Peter Bonde
Three Poles and a Sculpture

September 4 - October 17, 2020

I have always been interested in thinking of paintings as objects. In earlier projects I have among other ways, installed paintings aligned horizontally as one large “table top” resting on table bucks. Or I have hung a number of paintings edge to edge in more or less accidental sequences.

To me paintings - that is also my own paintings - are materials to be used along side other materials.

To me it is helpful to think of paintings, not so as much art works in themselves, but merely as tools or means for a process. Maybe due to this I want to keep the whole thing open. I don’t want the individual paintings to be fixed or frozen into a finished or static work. I hope to keep them open. In a way the pole installations have made that possible. The paintings can hypothetically keep changing through continuous new combinations.

For the past year or so I have been contributing to works by Danh Vo, who have been sourcing my mirror paintings as objects in his installations, which has also included writings by his farther Phung Vo and photographs by his partner, Heinz Peter Knez. This experience has reinforced my own interest and understanding of the potential of the eclectic constellation of exciting art works in new inter-chancing entities.

I think Cady Noland is one of the most important artists of our time. In my own humble way my use of poles is – without any comparison - a tribute to her work. I like the idea of using my own paintings as object along side the poles and other found materials. Dead Space (to quote a Noland title): Dead Space, Dead Painting.

A scene in Sofia Coppola’s movie “Somewhere” keeps haunting me. Stephen Dorff is playing the character of a semi-depressed actor, exhausted by life and parental responsibility, ordering in a stripper to his hotel room. She brings an adjustable pole for her routine. He stays indifferently exhausted, and falls a sleep during her performance. Somehow this scene hit me. And the pole seemed to play a key role as a failing tool for entertainment and distraction. I like that idea.

Peter Bonde--

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Peter Bonde (b. 1958) lives and works in Copenhagen. Educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (1976-1982), later professor at the School of Painting (1996-2005). Recipient of the Eckersberg Medal in 2003, and awarded Statens Kunstfond’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 1999 (with Jason Rhoades). Peter Bonde is represented in numerous Danish and international collections, including Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, ARKEN Museum for Modern Art, Ishøj, Kunsten, Aalborg, Can Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul, Turkey, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, German