On Art: Season 11
Dea Trier Mørch
Birth
Linocut Print
1978
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
© Dea Trier Mørch / VISDA
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S11E3. Pernille Ipsen
I chose a series of four blue and white linocuts by the graphic artist and writer Dea Trier Mørch. They're from 1978 and they are showing the progress of a birth. And that's also the title, Birth, or Fødsel in Danish. First you see the crown of the head, then you see the shoulders, and then the whole baby is out. And then finally in the fourth frame, you see a pair of adult hands embracing the newborn child. These prints are filled with energy. She worked with such pace and resolve and authority, and it shows in how the lines are so sharp and so clear. She could only do that because she was so sure of herself. This particular piece of hers where this little baby comes out from the safe but private inner world of the womb and enters the larger social and political world, speaks so powerfully to this moment in the '70s when the personal became political. And her insistence on treating birth as an important event in not just private life but also in society, really speaks to me.
Anna Bjerger
Square
Oil on aluminum
2019
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
© Anna Bjerger / VISDA
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S11E2. Mette Lampcov
I was recently in Denmark, and the painting that really stood out for me was Anna Bjerger's Square. It seemed like a perfect representation of this moment in time and history. It's this very big, dark, ominous shadow going across a city square in a town. Everybody's walking alone. And that really gives me the feeling of how we are now. We are on our phones, we are on social media. People lack community and connection and people feel isolated. We live in slightly dark times, politically. I think the world is going through a moment, where I'm sure there's positive things happening, maybe somewhere, but we are also going through a time where it's scary. I really felt this painting spoke to me on what's happening today.
Gerhard Henning
Standing Nude Girl
Stone
1928–1929
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
S11E1. Samuel Rachlin
You have asked me to pick a piece of art from our national gallery, Statens Museum for Kunst. And I didn't have to think very long because I'm biased, since the museum in its art collection has a sculpture by Danish sculptor Gerhard Henning. And the title of the sculpture is Standing Nude Girl. And I have a special personal relationship with that sculpture because I found out, or my mother told me, she was the model for that fantastic sculpture. When I was a young man, she told me the story — she was modeling for it in 1928, she was around 20 years old — and asked me if I wanted to see it. And then she took me to the museum, I saw it, and I was flabbergasted. It's a voluminous, beautiful sculpture. My mother as God created her, and she was a beautiful young woman. We included that story in one of the volumes of my parents' memoir and my mother reluctantly told the true story of how it happened. When my mom showed me the sculpture, which was standing outside the museum in the park, I was stunned. Wow.