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ASMUND
HAVSTEEN-MIKKELSEN
The
future
begins at
home
———UK
building appear as an ordinary model. In his choice of subject matter, he plays on a
collective memory of modernism’s spaces as Havsteen-Mikkelsen is interested in
the mental space that buildings are exponents for, rather than the concrete space.
DREAMS ARE THE STUFF
THAT ARCHITECTURE IS MADE OF
———The Mental Spaces of Architecture
Belief in the significance of architecture is premised on the notion that we are, for better or
for worse, different people in different places – and on the conviction that it is architecture’s
task to render vivid to us who we might ideally be.
Alain de Botton1
Since the Age of Reason buildings have been regarded as active and educational and
with an ability to influence and change people’s mental spaces. The book The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton is a cultural historical exploration of our buildings with the presumption that they are not merely empty shells that provide roofs
over our heads; rather they are exponents of our approach to the world. Architecture
affects us and helps shape our world – we both create it and are created by it.
That architecture is more than a framework, that it also provides a direction for our way of living and thinking our lives, is the point of departure for the artist Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen (b. 1977). The exhibition The Future Begins at Home
is a large-scale exploration of the fundamental architectural ideas behind our modern dwellings today, presented primarily through paintings but also through sitespecific works, dialogue based projects and sculptures.
Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen saw his breakthrough in the middle of the
previous decade with his evocative Hopper inspired subjects from the edges of the
big city, which emphasised places void of identity and relations such as tunnels and
petrol stations. Today the architectural structures still constitute the motivic foundation in his works, but his spatial explorations have moved from the depiction of
fringe areas and transit rooms to the canonised edifices of modernism and habitations of today.
His painterly explorations concern the architectural frames we erect around
our lives and which take part in governing the way we lead our lives. Therefore, it is a
recurring feature that Havsteen-Mikkelsen selects subjects that are often canonised
and normative architectural buildings, such as Le Corbusier’s 1931 Villa Savoye in
Paris or Richard Neutra’s Chuey House in California from 1958. In the cases where the
point of departure isn’t famous buildings, Havsteen-Mikkelsen focuses on the architectural structure and has the modernist traits carry the narrative, letting the
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———Dynamic Opposites
A formal characteristic of Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s paintings is the fact that they are
constructed over dynamic opposites present not only externally, between two painting techniques for instance, but also internally in the individual styles.
At first glance the work Spacey from 2008 seems composed with clear opposites as the basic principles: On the level of subject matter this is manifest as the personal dwelling versus the normative architectural structure, and in the composition
light is contrasted with shade, inside with outside. Stylistically one finds Concretism
(the clearly defined areas of pastose paint) versus realism (the work depicts a recognisable room), and opposites are also evident in the actual painting style which is
both clear and distinct with no traces of the brush, only elsewhere to be light, loose
and expressive.
Looking closer, however, the opposites are dynamically interwoven. The
model for Spacey is Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. The subject is an architectural icon,
originally created as a private residence but which never functioned optimally as
such, as the house in many ways was unfit to live in. This in itself is a dynamic opposite, one of the modernist convictions being that the rationally conceived dwelling
was to be comfortable and ease everyday life; the so-called “machine for living in”.
This opposite is emphasised by Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s treatment of the motif which
both opens up for the universal and the personal: Most traces of life have been distilled away so that the subject appears to be pure with only the minimal space generating structures remaining. In a way, the dwelling has been taken back to its pure
form, to the model before residence is taken up, everyday life begins, and the inhabitants make their personal marks on the house. Expressed through painting’s form,
however, still the model is personalised and its universality is wrested from it.
Compositionally the opposites are evident in the tight construction of geometric figures; an abstraction which recalls the Concretism of the 1950s, juxtaposed
by free and expressive brushwork. The painting seems to be vibrating between a
synthetic purity and a saturated textural effect. The mutual dynamics of the opposites are given power because Havsteen-Mikkelsen allows the contrasts to be expressed within the frames of Concretism, in that an exaggerated illusionist space is
introduced in the work, capturing the viewer’s gaze but to such an extent that it
seems unreliable, thus breaking the illusion. In this way, the realist painting’s space,
which Concretism abandoned, is present in the work but without being maintained.
It is exaggerated through the formal dynamics and thus the illusion is forced back to
its concrete basis: the mere paint.
This subtle duality is a general device that Havsteen-Mikkelsen employs in
his works, and it is present at all levels, compositionally, stylistically and in the subject matter.
Furthermore, in a number of paintings, Havsteen-Mikkelsen employs this
duality to create an atmosphere of “the uncanny” in his works – a theme he has explored in previous solo exhibitions such as Meditations on the Uncanny and
Chuey House, 2008
Estrangement City. The term is derived from Sigmund Freud’s text “Das Unheimliche”
from 1919. Das Unheimliche means the scary, creepy, directly translated “the unhome-ly”. With this ambiguous term Freud wished to draw attention to the fact that
the familiar and intimate everyday rooms that surround us have an immanent ability to turn into their opposite. With this he meant that the structures and forms of
rationality on which our behavioural patterns are based, have an ability to make
themselves independent and thus alienate us – the users – from them. In these
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situations familiar things suddenly become unfamiliar, intimate things strange and
safe things menacing. This distancing effect or “Verfremdungseffekt” takes place in
a number of Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s paintings through their pictorial reduction, the
striking cropping and the evocative mood attained through the colours’ derealised
values. On a critical level, this aesthetic strategy in itself becomes a statement on the
ability of architectural structures to produce Verfremdung where ideally they ought
to produce freedom.
———Active Use of Tradition
Havsteen-Mikkelsen works actively with the tradition of painting, drawing heavily
on the explorations made in the past sixty years by movements such as Concretist
painting; explorations whose results are continued and at the same time developed
in his work practice, in that they support and offer substance to the themes he deals
with in his subject matter. He uses Concretism as form; it lies beneath his subjects,
pulsating, giving composition and space to the paintings, but he also employs the
meanings that Concretism brings as art historical position.
The Concretists opposed a type of painting and art borne by expressivity,
spontaneity and consequently subjectivism. Works by Danish artists like Gunnar
Aagaard Andersen, Albert Mertz and Richard Mortensen are characterised by geometric and structural strictness, and all openings which might lead to figurative references and on from there to symbolic and conceptual worlds are closed off. In their
paintings the expressive brushwork – so essential to CoBrA and the subsequent
Abstract Expressionism – is banned. The universal, not the personal, is key, and this
SPACEY, 2008
is manifest in form as well as in painting style. The works appear as a closed form,
free of inherent references to the world beyond and thus also free of references to
the artist and his hand in the creation process. Their works are experimental explorations of creations of space. Richard Mortensen denoted the space in his works
from this period “the egg shaped space” – a space which was both concave and convex, built from surface and line, and which worked against a classically perspectival
space. Gunnar Aagaard Andersen took the space experiments to the next level, organising his works from principles of repetition and fixed structures, making the repudiation of subjectivism increasingly concrete, and anticipating some of the explorations made by 1960s Minimalism. His works, however, also open up to an architectural field, a social space, and compared with Havsteen-Mikkelsen, this movement is interesting because here is a connection between painting’s spatial experiments and the space of architecture. Havsteen-Mikkelsen expands Concretism’s explorations by making them figurative – by allowing them expression in a figurative
space which, however, is never pure figuration because the spaces either open too
much or reject the viewer with their materiality, making it impossible to sustain the
illusion – a device which is most evident in the works Spacey and Garage.
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———Abstraction and Realism – a Paradox and a Possibility
Yet, Concretism isn’t the only player on the field, for Havsteen-Mikkelsen also employs an expressive idiom and the meanings associated with it. The expressivity becomes an element that adds meaning to the works, as a stylistic device which opens
up to personal and intimate aspects; the quick, loose brushstroke versus the sharply
delineated field as manifest for instance in the work Spacey.
Generally, abstraction is a keystone in Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s paintings,
whether the issue is Concretism’s geometric and universally founded abstraction (in
e.g. The Institution) or an expressive and subjectivally borne abstraction (such as the
work The Escape Button). It is evident in works such as Silo, 2010, Living Cells, 2011,
and Shadows in the House, 2008, but also present as a compositional principle in
works such as Garage, 2010, and Rotaprint, 2010. This insistence on the significance
of the abstract may seem like a contradiction in terms, in that the works operate
within a realistic field with clear subjects and illusionist spaces. However, it becomes
obvious if one realises the fact that every stroke and figure has an abstract meaning
which goes beyond form itself and supports the statements presented in the subject
matter. Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s complete and poignant works emerge in the interplay
between the formal-abstract layer and the incorporation of the art and architecture
historical references into the work’s totality.
In the work Living Cells the window openings in the architectural façade
are treated as paintings from Abstract Expressionism: Mark Rothko in one window,
Barnett Newman in the other. On the other hand, the façade’s industrial severity,
the repetition of uniform habitation cells and the seriality with which the building
appears recall Gunnar Aagaard Andersen’s Concretism and the subsequent
Minimalism in the 1960s when artists such as Donald Judd and Robert Morris in
their sculptures avoided a personal artistic expression by basing their works on industrially produced modules. Havsteen-Mikkelsen employs stylistic traits from two
opposite tendencies, Concretism and Minimalism on the one hand, Abstract
Expressionism on the other. The focus for Abstract Expressionism is the actual act
of painting, making the work characterised by the painter’s personal imprint. It is a
different matter with the Minimalist works in which the mechanically produced
modules show no sign of human interaction in their creation process. In Living Cells
these two radically different artistic creation strategies are combined; the industrially manufactured versus the personally borne. The windowpanes open up for individuality in the work’s appearance but are all locked into the overall grid, into the
very architectural structure. In this way, Havsteen-Mikkelsen employs the stylistic
and compositional planes to comment on the level of subject matter (a newly erected
housing estate in the Ørestaden neighbourhood), thus making a subtle comment on
the way in which we live and build today, where what should be open spaces and
planes turn into structures that lock individuality.
The same strategy is evident in the work The Institution, 2009, in which expressiveness has been downplayed and is only present in a few red strokes. The
painting is dominated by geometric figures in cool greens and blues and with a clear
separation between the individual planes. On a stylistic level this becomes a statement about the precedence of the universal over the personal. The depicted institution appears created for universal purposes, despite an everyday life in which people are in and use the rooms, but the rooms are unreal, making the viewer critically
question the way in which institutions today legitimise themselves. Were they made
for the users or for their own sake?
In the aesthetic strategy that Havsteen-Mikkelsen employs, the communicative
power of the stylistic elements is added to the themes suggested by the subjects and
titles; at the same time he stretches and alters the boundaries of the realistic painting.
———Revitalising Realism in Painting
Havsteen-Mikkelsen is revitalising realism in painting both through his use of abstraction in the composition and his use of the narrative force of realism without
abandoning its textural nature. This is a trend evident in a broad spectrum of contemporary painters, including Tal R, Kaspar Bonnén and John Kørner, and outside
of a Danish context in painters such as Luc Tuymans, Matthias Weischer, Gerhard
Richter, Peter Doig, Dirk Skreber and Clara Klein, to name but a few. Despite differences, a common denominator for these artists is that they work with figuration in
painting while drawing on experiences from other media and genres, such as conceptual art, as well as the experiences inherent in abstract painting.
To a large part of these artists, the personal and intimate space is an essential issue. This applies to Tal R and Kaspar Bonnén where the basis for the subject
matter is everyday life, its objects and situations. Although the personal is an important feature in Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s works, it is not present in the choice of subject
matter. Therefore, it seems more obvious to suggest references to artists on the international stage as those mentioned above, whose subjects are more universal.
Klein’s abandoned rooms are rendered with such minimalism that their actual use is
not evident. With no people or other clues to introduce a scale in the works, they are
freed from any limited meaning and function, taking on an abstract character. The
same movement is found in Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s The Institution, in which
abstraction is tied to the space creations of Concretism. Skreber performs the same
balancing act between realism and abstraction as seen in Havsteen-Mikkelsen but
where Concretism lies as an abstract undercurrent in Havsteen-Mikkelsen, in
Skreber’s works it is monochromatic painting that provides the foundation.
Furthermore, both artists are indebted to a painter like Luc Tuymans whose relatively simple subjects always open up for a story of other dimensions, allowing a collective remembrance to play along. For in both Havsteen-Mikkelsen and Skreber,
the stories of the depicted places and spaces are a salient factor in the narratives
generated in the paintings, and although completely different stories are emphasised, both of them play on a collective remembrance, as when Havsteen-Mikkelsen
takes Villa Savoye as his point of departure or Skreber Columbine High School in
Colorado as his. But as explained, the personal does play a subtle role in HavsteenMikkelsen’s works; not in the subject matter, which assumes a collective remembrance, but on a stylistic level where the personal angle is made via the meanings
embedded in the Abstract Expressionist painting tradition.
Havsteen-Mikkelsen explores architecture, which is a field that by definition is collective and social. He “modelises” the depicted rooms, making them appear as rooms that are familiar to us, even when we have never actually been in
them. We know them because they have set a precedent for a building style that is
prevalent today. At the same time Havsteen-Mikkelsen gives us the rooms anew because they have been filtered through painting’s textural and spatial elements.
Together the works constitute a kind of thought diagram which enables us to reflect
on our space creations that are always embedded in collective patterns of meaning
and thus help create society’s notions of itself. For the rooms and the buildings are
not empty shells – they want something with us, they hold the requirement for a
certain way of life, a certain pattern for the good life and the perfect society.
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———The Architectural Space and the Mental Space
“In reality, the architects of the Modernist movement, just like all their predecessors, wanted
their houses to speak. … They wanted their houses to speak of the future, with its promise of
speed and technology, democracy and science. … Despite their claims to a purely scientific
and reasoned approach, the relationship of Modernist architects to their work remained at
base a romantic one: they looked to architecture to support a way of life that appealed to
them. Their domestic buildings were conceived as stage sets for actors in an idealised drama
about contemporary existence.”2
In The Architecture of Happiness Alain de Botton points out that in some
parts of the architectural Modernism, one finds an undercurrent of future optimism
that is an expression of how the perfect life is to be lived and arranged. This aspect
of modernism is key in Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s works, but viewed from a contemporary context and with a knowledge of the criticism levelled at modernist architecture since the ‘60s. When modernism today fascinates Havsteen-Mikkelsen, it is
precisely because it grappled with that aspect of architecture, that it implicitly holds
a demand for a certain way of life – a recipe for the good life.
That architecture thus is presumed to affect one’s mental state is not new.
Since the revolutionary architects’ reflections in the Age of Reason, this aspect has
been, if not at the heart of, then at least an important factor in the creation
LIVING CELLS (detail/detalje), 2010
of buildings. In the architecture of the eighteenth century, this line of thought was
implemented in the creation of public institutions such as the prison system, and in
Denmark this was manifest in the neoclassicist C.F. Hansen’s penitary in
Copenhagen. The penitary was designed with single cells as isolation and prayer
were regarded as the inmate’s road to a moral life. People were considered in the design of the building; not as they were but as they should be. The architecture of
modernism took the next step from public edifices to residential rooms, still with
the assumption that architecture was more than a framework for the way we express our lives, that it is also provided a direction for it.
This is staged in a painting such as Garage, the subject of which is based on
Jacques Tati’s satirical film Mon Oncle from 1958. The film is about the everyday life
of the nouveau riche couple the Arpels in what should be a house with all modern
amenities, a modernist gem. But something is amiss; in the absurd and funny portrayal of the couple’s everyday life it transpires that the real inhabitants of the house
are not the couple, because they are subjected to the furniture, the garden, the technical installations and the house itself. They are living a modernist dream of the residence and life of the future but in realising that dream, the mechanics and the systems take over, pushing the dreamers out on a sidetrack. They are turned into illplaced extras in their own lives.
In his book The Good Life – A Guided Visit to the Houses of Modernity, the architect Iñaki Ábalos describes the Arpels’ house as a representative of a positivist
outlook.3 In this context, Madame Arpel’s brother, Monsieur Hulot, functions as the
outside element that shows the distortion and the holes in the system. Where
Monsieur Hulot appears as a parasite whose mere presence makes the positivist
dream of the perfect life crack, similarly the expressive brushstrokes and the pure
painterly and abstract fields in the work Garage function as the elements that dissolve the realist representation. The orange railing in the bottom left corner is far
more than a functional railing – it consists of expressive and painterly strokes which
speak to the act of painting, referring to itself, free of a function. The orange brushstrokes seem to function as preliminary sketches in the painting but they do not
sketch the composition or the figures. Rather, they are loose and expressive strokes
on the dark green background that lies like an obscure maelstrom underneath the
painting’s subject, tearing it free of a realistic basis. With the realism of the subject,
the strokes seem without function and so contribute to the dissolution of the realism. And this dissolution is supported by the realism itself. The garage’s big, dark,
inscrutable void sucks in the viewer’s gaze but at the same time is reserved and
closed – no shapes appear from the darkness. The illusion is there but is broken by
being dissolved in the disparate elements of the surface. Garage becomes a work that
both deals with the necessity of retaining the dream about the future and is a reminder that the complete rationalisation of our lives contains the danger that we
cannot be present ourselves in the perfect life.
In a work like The Future as a Sphere from 2011, there are clear allusions to
the idealism of both the Age of Realism and modernism, but in his own way
Havsteen-Mikkelsen explores their shared belief in emancipation through science.
Although the subject is inspired by a building by Bernard Tschumi and Rem
Koolhaas from Parc de la Villette in Paris, the sphere in the centre of the picture also refers to Étienne-Louis Boullée’s never erected eighteenth-century monument to
———DK
Newton and to Richard Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes from the 1960s. The
spherical motif has other references than to the history of architecture since it also
opens up to allusions to fortunetelling and uncertain statements about the future,
and furthermore the sphere does not offer a glimpse of the future but a distortion of
the present – of the sphere’s immediate surroundings. There is a painterly oppostion
between the sphere and its surroundings: Whereas the area beyond the sphere consists of clearly defined and separated fields in which the individual brushstrokes are
not evident, the sphere is executed in a lighter, more expressive style with strokes
and colours blending, only to disappear in hues of white at the top of the sphere. The
future shown by the work is neither idealised nor structured but is a distorted reflection of the future that is expressive, personal and uncertain.
Thus, it is not an infatuated fascination with architecture that sustains
Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s works, but a recognition of how important it is to reflect on
the framework in which we live our lives. The subjects he explores are the social aspects of the spaces and the concomitant life world with its mental space. With painterly means he takes the subject back to its foundation, to the model for the building,
thus reacting critically to the idea behind it. Critically and deliberately he works
with the traditions embedded in painting’s history, compositionally and stylistically
discussing the content found in his subject matter. The strict geometric figures, the
expressive brushwork and exaggerated perspective become devices that also point
beyond the frame of the painting – they become statements about space creations
and statements about the relationship between the personal and the social in this
movement. Havsteen-Mikkelsen’s paintings are subtle explorations of the relationship
between architectural and mental structures which in the overall theme of the exhibition become a relationship to the future. A future that begins in the home when
we start to consider why we live like we do. That it isn’t architecture examining itself, but rather another space creating medium – painting – makes the examinations strong and relevant. However, they reach even further, for in painting’s explorations of architectural structures it also explores itself in the borderland between
realism and abstraction.
Drømme er det stof
arkitektur er gjort af
———Arkitekturens mentale rum
Troen på arkitekturens betydning bygger på den opfattelse, at vi på godt og ondt ændrer os
med vore omgivelser – og på en overbevisning om, at det er arkitekturens opgave at give os et
levende indtryk af, hvem vi ideelt set kunne være.
Alain de Botton1
Siden oplysningstiden er bygninger blevet opfattet som agerende og opdragende og
med en evne til at have indvirkning på og forandre menneskets mentale rum. Bogen
Lykkens arkitektur af Alain de Botton er en kulturhistorisk undersøgelse af vores bygninger ud fra den antagelse, at de ikke blot er tomme skaller, der giver os tag over
hovedet; de er derimod eksponenter for vores tilgang til verden. Dina Vester Feilberg, MA in Art History
———
(Endnotes) 1. Alain de Botton (2006): The Architecture of Happiness, page 13 • 2. Ibid,
page 62-63 • 3. Iñaki Ábalos (2001): The Good Life - A Guided Visit to the Houses of
Modernity, page 72.
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Garage, 2010
tilbage. Boligen er på sæt og vis ført tilbage til sin rene form, til modellen før beboelsen sætter ind, hverdagen træder i kraft, og beboerne sætter deres personlige
præg på boligen. Men udtrykt gennem maleriets form bliver modellen alligevel
personliggjort og fravristes sin almenhed.
Kompositionsmæssigt kommer modsætningerne til udtryk i den stramme
opbygning over geometriske figurer, en abstraktion, der leder tankerne hen mod
1950’ernes konkretisme, der modstilles af en fri og ekspressiv penselføring.
Maleriet står og vibrerer mellem en syntetisk renhed og en mættet stoflighed.
Modsætningernes indbyrdes dynamik får kraft, fordi Havsteen-Mikkelsen lader
kontrasterne udfolde sig inden for konkretismens rammer, idet et overgjort illusionistisk rum spilles ind i værket, hvorved beskuerens blik fanges, men i en sådan
grad, at det virker utroværdigt, og illusionen derved brydes. Det realistiske maleris
rum, som konkretismen undsagde, er dermed til stede i værket, men uden at det
bliver opretholdt. Det bliver overdrevet igennem den formelle dynamik, og dermed tvinges illusionen tilbage til sit konkrete udgangspunkt: Den blotte og bare
maling. Denne raffinerede dobbelthed er et generelt greb, Havsteen-Mikkelsen
benytter sig af i sine værker, og den udspiller sig på alle planer, kompositionsmæssigt, stilistisk og motivisk.
I en række malerier benytter Havsteen-Mikkelsen endvidere denne dobbelthed til at skabe en stemning af ”uhjemlighed” i sine værker – et tema som han
har arbejdet med i tidligere solo-udstillinger som Meditations on the Uncanny og
Estrangement City. Begrebet stammer fra Sigmund Freuds tekst ”Das Unheimliche”
fra 1919. Oversat til dansk betyder ”Das Unheimliche” ”det uhyggelige”, direkte
oversat ”det uhjemlige”. Igennem dette flertydige begreb ønskede Freud at gøre
opmærksom på, at de velkendte og fortrolige hverdagsrum, som omgiver os, har
en indbygget evne til at slå om i deres modsætning. Med det mente han, at de
strukturer og rationalitetsformer, der ligger til grund for vore handlingsmønstre,
har en evne til at selvstændiggøre sig og dermed fremmedgøre os – brugerne – fra
dem. I sådanne situationer bliver det hjemlige pludseligt uhjemligt, det nære
fjernt, og det trygge faretruende. Denne ”fremmedgørelseslogik” udspiller sig i en
række af Havsteen-Mikkelsen malerier igennem den billedlige reduktion, den
markante beskæring og den atmosfæriske stemning opnået igennem farvernes derealiserede valører. På et kritisk niveau bliver denne æstetiske strategi i sig selv til
et udsagn om arkitektoniske strukturers evne til at producere fremmedgørelse,
hvor de ideelt set burde skabe frihed.
Arkitekturen øver indtryk på os og er med til at forme vores verden - vi både skaber
den og bliver skabt af den.
At arkitekturen er mere end en ramme, at den også er rammesættende for
vores måde at leve og tænke vores liv på, er udgangspunktet for kunstneren Asmund
Havsteen-Mikkelsen (f. 1977). Udstillingen Fremtiden begynder hjemme er en storstilet
undersøgelse af de grundlæggende arkitektoniske idéer, der ligger bag vores moderne boliger i dag, og den udfoldes fortrinsvis via malerier, men også gennem stedspecifikke værker, dialogbaserede projekter og skulpturer.
Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen slog igennem i midten af sidste årti med sine
stemningsfulde Hopper-inspirerede motiver fra storbyens randområder, der betonede identitets- og relationsløse steder som tunneller og tankstationer. I dag er det
stadig de arkitektoniske strukturer, der er det motiviske udgangspunkt i hans værker, men hans rumlige undersøgelser har bevæget sig fra skildringen af randområder og transitrum til modernismens kanoniserede bygninger og boligen i dag.
Hans maleriske undersøgelser omhandler de arkitektoniske rammer, vi
sætter op omkring vores liv, og som er med til at bestemme vores livsudfoldelse. Det
er derfor et gennemgående træk, at Havsteen-Mikkelsen vælger motiver, der ofte er
kanoniserede og normskabende arkitektoniske bygninger som Le Corbusiers Villa
Savoye i Paris fra 1931 eller Richard Neutras Chuey House i Californien fra 1958. I de
tilfælde hvor udgangspunktet ikke er kendte bygninger, fokuserer HavsteenMikkelsen på den arkitektoniske struktur og lader de modernistiske træk være bærende, så bygningen træder frem som en almen model. I sit motivvalg spiller han på
en kollektiv erindring om modernismens rum, da Havsteen-Mikkelsen er interesseret i det mentale rum, bygninger er eksponenter for, og ikke det konkrete rum.
———Dynamiske modsætninger
Et formelt kendetegn ved Havsteen-Mikkelsens malerier er, at de er opbygget over
dynamiske modsætninger, der ikke blot findes eksternt, mellem to maleteknikker
eksempelvis, men også internt i de enkelte stilarter.
Værket Spacey fra 2008 fremstår umiddelbart som komponeret med klare
modsætninger som grundsten: På et motivisk plan sætter det sig igennem som den
personlige bolig over for den normgivende arkitektoniske struktur, og i kompositionen ses lys over for skygge, inde over for ude. Stilistisk forefindes konkretisme (de
klart afgrænsede felter af pastos maling) over for realisme (at værket afbilder et genkendeligt rum), og modsætninger sætter sig også igennem i selve malestilen, der både er klar og distinkt uden antydning af penslens arbejde, for andre steder at være
let, løs og ekspressiv.
Men ved nærmere eftersyn er modsætningerne dynamisk indvævet i hinanden. Forlægget for Spacey er Le Corbusiers Villa Savoye. Motivet er et arkitektonisk
ikon, der oprindeligt er skabt som privatbolig, men som aldrig kom til at fungere optimalt som sådan, da huset på flere måder var uegnet som bolig. Dette er i sig selv en
dynamisk modsætning, da en modernistisk kongstanke var, at den rationelt tænkte
bolig skulle være bekvem og lette hverdagen, den såkaldte ”bo-maskine”. Denne
modsætning understreges af Havsteen-Mikkelsens omgang med motivet, der både
åbner for det almene og det personlige: De fleste spor af liv er destilleret bort, så motivet fremstår umiddelbart rent, og kun de minimale rumskabende strukturer er
16
17
———Aktiv brug af traditionen
Havsteen-Mikkelsen arbejder aktivt med maleriets tradition og trækker tydelige
veksler på de undersøgelser, som bl.a. det konkretistiske maleri har foretaget igennem de seneste 60 år. Undersøgelser, hvis resultater både videreføres og samtidig
udvikles i værkpraksissen, idet de understøtter og giver substans til de temaer, som
han motivisk kredser om. Han benytter konkretismen som form, den ligger og dirrer bag hans motiver og giver komposition og rum i malerierne, men han bruger
også de betydninger, konkretismen bærer med sig som kunsthistorisk position. Konkretisterne opponerede mod et maleri og en kunst, der var båret af
ekspressivitet, spontanitet og følgelig subjektivisme. Værker af kunstnere som
Gunnar Aagaard Andersen, Albert Mertz og Richard Mortensen er karakteriseret af
geometrisk og strukturel strenghed, og alle åbninger, der kan lede til figurative henvisninger og videre derfra til symbolske og begrebslige verdener, er lukket. I malerierne er den ekspressive penselføring — der er så væsentlig i CoBrA og den efterfølgende abstrakte ekspressionisme – bandlyst. Det er det almene, og ikke det personlige, der er i centrum, og dette giver sig udtryk i form såvel som i malestil. Værkerne
fremstår som en sluttet form, løsrevet fra iboende referencer til verden uden for
dem, og hermed også løsrevet fra referencer til kunstneren og hans hånd i tilblivelsesprocessen. Deres værker er eksperimenterende undersøgelser af rumdannelser.
Richard Mortensen benævnte rummet i sine værker fra den periode som ”det ægformede rum” – et rum der både gik indad og udad, opbygget via flade og streg, og som
arbejdede imod et klassisk perspektivisk rum. Gunnar Aagaard Andersen tog rumeksperimenterne videre og organiserede sine værker ud fra principper om gentagelse og faste strukturer, hvorved undsigelsen af subjektivismen blev yderligere konkret, og foregreb nogle af de undersøgelser, 1960’ernes minimalisme foretog. Men
hans værker åbner sig også over for et arkitektonisk felt, et socialt rum, og i forhold
til Havsteen-Mikkelsen bliver denne bevægelse interessant, fordi der her ligger en
forbindelse mellem maleriets rumlige eksperimenter og arkitekturens rum.
Havsteen-Mikkelsen udbygger konkretismens undersøgelser ved at gøre dem figurative – ved at lade dem udfolde sig i et figurativt rum, der dog aldrig er ren figuration, for rummene enten åbner sig for meget eller afviser beskueren i kraft af deres
materialitet, således at illusionen aldrig kan opretholdes – et greb der træder tydeligt frem i værkerne Spacey og Garage.
———Abstraktion og realisme – et paradoks og en mulighed
Dog, konkretismen er ikke den eneste spiller på banen, for Havsteen-Mikkelsen benytter sig ligeledes af et ekspressivt formsprog og de betydninger, der knytter sig
hertil. Ekspressiviteten bliver et betydningsskabende element i værkerne, som et stilistisk greb, der åbner for det personlige og nære; det hurtige og løse penselstrøg
overfor det skarpt afgrænsede felt, som det eksempelvis kommer til udtryk i værket
Spacey.
Overordnet betragtet er abstraktionen en grundsten i Havsteen-Mikkelsens
malerier, hvadenten det drejer sig om konkretismens geometriske og alment bårede
abstraktion (eksempelvis The Institution), eller en ekspressiv og subjektivt båret abstraktion (så som værket The Escape Button). Det træder tydeligt frem i værker som
Silo, 2010, Living Cells, 2011 og Shadows in the House, 2008, men er også til stede som
kompositionsprincip i værker som Garage, 2010 og Rotaprint, 2010. Denne insistering på det abstraktes betydning kan umiddelbart synes som en selvmodsigelse, i og
med at værkerne opererer inden for et realistisk felt med klare motiver og illusionistiske rum. Men det bliver klart, hvis man begriber det forhold, at hvert strøg og figur har en abstrakt betydning, der rækker udover selve formen og understøtter de
udsigelser, der lægges frem via motivet. Havsteen-Mikkelsens helstøbte og prægnante værker opstår i samspillet mellem det formelt-abstrakte lag og så indarbejdelsen af de kunst – og arkitekturhistoriske referencer i værkets helhed.
I værket Living Cells bliver vinduesåbningerne i den arkitektoniske facade
behandlet som malerier fra den abstrakte ekspressionisme, Mark Rothko i det ene
vindue, Barnett Newman i det andet. På den anden side leder facadens industrielle
strenghed, gentagelsen af ensrettede boligceller, og den serialitet bygningen fremtræder med, tanken hen på Gunnar Aagaard Andersens konkretisme og den efterfølgende minimalisme i 1960’erne, hvor kunstnere som Donald Judd og Robert Morris
i deres skulpturer undveg et personligt kunstnerisk udtryk ved at basere deres værker på industrielt fremstillede moduler. Havsteen-Mikkelsen gør brug af stilistiske
træk fra to modsatrettede tendenser, konkretismens og minimalismens på den ene
side, og abstrakt ekspressionisme på den anden. Omdrejningspunktet for den abstrakte ekspressionisme er selve maleakten, hvorved værket bæres af malerens personlige aftryk. Ganske anderledes forholder det sig i de minimalistiske værker, hvor
de maskinelt fremstillede moduler ikke bærer tegn på menneskelig interaktion i tilblivelsesprocessen. I Living Cells kombineres disse to radikalt forskellige kunstneriske skabelsesstrategier, det industrielt fremstillede over for det personligt bårne.
Vinduesruderne åbner for en individualitet i fremtrædelsen, men er alle fastlåst i det
overordnede grid, i selve den arkitektoniske struktur. Hermed benytter HavsteenMikkelsen de stilistiske og kompositionsmæssige planer til at kommentere det motiviske plan (et nyopført boligbyggeri i Ørestaden), og dermed udarbejde en raffineret
kommentar til vores måde at bo og bygge på i dag, hvor det, der skulle være åbne
rum og planer, bliver strukturer der låser individualiteten.
Samme strategi træder tydeligt frem i værket The Institution, 2009, hvor det
ekspressive udtryk er trængt i baggrunden og kun forefindes i få røde strøg. Maleriet
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19
THe FUTURE AS A SPHERE, 2010
er domineret af geometriske figurer holdt i kølige grønne og blå nuancer og med
klar adskillelse planerne imellem. På det stilistiske niveau bliver dette til en udsigelse om det almenes forrang frem for det personlige. Den afbillede institution fremstår
som skabt med almene forhold for øje, uagtet en hverdag hvor mennesker bruger og
færdes i rummene, og med uvirkelige rum, der får én til at stille kritisk spørgsmålstegn ved måden, hvorpå institutioner i dag legitimerer sig selv. Er de til for brugerne
eller for deres egen skyld?
I den æstetiske strategi, Havsteen-Mikkelsen benytter, føjes stilistiske elementers udsigelseskraft til de temaer, motiverne og titlerne anslår, samtidig med at
han strækker og ændrer grænserne for det realistiske maleri.
THE INSTITUTION (detail/detalje), 2009
21
———Revitalisering af realismen i maleriet
Havsteen-Mikkelsen er med til at revitalisere realismen i maleriet både igennem
hans brug af abstraktionen i kompositionen og hans brug af realismens fortællekraft
uden at undsige dets stoflige karakter. Det er en tendens, der ses hos et bredt spektrum af samtidige malere, så som Tal R, Kaspar Bonnén og John Kørner, og uden for
en dansk sammenhæng hos malere som Luc Tuymans, Matthias Weischer, Gerhard
Richter, Peter Doig, Dirk Skreber og Clara Klein, for blot at nævne nogle få. Forskelle til trods, er en fællesnævner for disse kunstnere, at de arbejder
med figurationen i maleriet, samtidig med at de trækker på erfaringer fra andre medier og genrer som eksempelvis konceptkunsten, samt på de erfaringer der ligger
indlejret i det abstrakte maleri.
For en stor del af disse kunstnere er det personlige og nære rum et omdrejningspunkt. Det gør sig gældende for Tal R og Kaspar Bonnén, hvor motivernes udgangspunkt er hverdagen, dens objekter og situationer. Selvom det personlige er et
væsentligt træk i Havsteen-Mikkelsens værker, så sætter dette sig ikke igennem i
motivvalget. Det ligger derfor mere ligefor at opsætte referencer til kunstnere på
den internationale scene som de ovenfor nævnte, hvis motiver er af mere almen karakter. Kleins mennesketomme rum er gengivet så minimalistisk, at den egentlige
brug af dem ikke skinner igennem. Uden mennesker og andre rettesnore, der indsætter en skala i værkerne, løses de fra en bunden mening og funktion og antager en
abstrakt karakter. Samme bevægelse spores i Havsteen-Mikkelsens The Institution,
hvor abstraktionen er bundet op på konkretismens rumdannelser. Skreber foretager
samme balancegang mellem realisme og abstraktion, som ses udfoldet hos
Havsteen-Mikkelsen, men hvor det er konkretismen, der ligger som den abstrakte
understrøm hos Havsteen-Mikkelsen, så er det det monokrome maleri, der danner
grund i Skrebers værker. Ydermere står begge kunstnere i arv til en maler som Luc
Tuymans, hvis relativt enkle motiver altid åbner for en historie af andre dimensioner og lader en kollektiv erindring spille med. For hos både Havsteen-Mikkelsen og
Skreber er de afbillede steder og rums historier en væsentlig faktor i de fortællinger,
der genereres i malerierne, og selvom det er vidt forskellige historier, der betones, så
spiller de i begge tilfælde på en kollektiv erindring, som når Havsteen-Mikkelsen tager afsæt i Villa Savoye eller Skreber i Columbine High School i Colorado. Men som
der er gjort rede for tidligere, så spiller det personlige på raffineret vis alligevel med
i Havsteen-Mikkelsens værker, ikke i motivkredsen, der forudsætter en kollektiv
erindring, men på et stilistisk plan, hvor det personlige snit bliver lagt via de betyd-
ninger, der er indlejret i den abstrakt ekspressionistiske maletradition.
Havsteen-Mikkelsen undersøger arkitekturen, som er et felt, der per definition er kollektivt og socialt. Han ”modelliserer” de skildrede rum, så de fremtræder
som kendte rum for os, også uden at vi konkret har været i dem. Vi kender dem, fordi de har skabt præcedens for en byggestil, der er fremherskende i dag. Samtidig giver Havsteen-Mikkelsen rummene til os på ny, fordi de er filtreret igennem maleriets stoflighed og rum. Værkerne danner tilsammen et slags tanke-diagram, som giver os mulighed for at reflektere over vores rumdannelser, der altid er indlejret i kollektive betydningsmønstre, og dermed er med til at skabe samfundets forestillinger
om sig selv. For rummene og bygningerne er ikke tomme skaller – de vil os noget, de
rummer fordringen om en bestemt livsform, et bestemt mønster for det gode liv og
det perfekte samfund.
———Det arkitektoniske rum og det mentale rum
”I virkeligheden ønskede de modernistiske arkitekter, ligesom alle deres forgængere, at få deres huse til at tale. … De ønskede, at deres huse skulle tale om fremtiden, med alle dens løfter
om fart og teknologi, om demokrati og videnskab. …. Selv om de modernistiske arkitekter
hævdede, at de havde en rent videnskabelig og fornuftsbetonet tilgang til deres arbejde, vedblev deres forhold til deres profession med at være romantisk. De sørgede for, at arkitekturen
understøttede en livsform, som de holdt af. Deres boligbyggerier var udtænkt som scenearrangementer for aktører i et lærestykke om den moderne tilværelse.”2
I Lykkens arkitektur påpeger Alain de Botton, at der i visse dele af den arkitektoniske modernisme findes en understrøm af fremskridtsoptimisme, der er et udtryk for, hvordan det perfekte liv skal leves og indrettes. Dette aspekt ved modernismen er et omdrejningspunkt i Havsteen-Mikkelsens værker, men betragtet ud fra
en nutidig kontekst og med en viden om den kritik den modernistiske arkitektur har
været udsat for siden 60’erne. Når modernismen fascinerer Havsteen-Mikkelsen i
dag, skyldes det netop, at den tog livtag med det aspekt af arkitekturen, at den implicit rummer en fordring om en bestemt form for livsudfoldelse — en opskrift på det
gode liv.
At arkitektur på denne vis antages at indvirke på mentaliteten er ikke noget
nyt. Siden revolutionsarkitekternes overvejelser fra oplysningstiden har dette forhold, om end ikke været i centrum, så spillet en betydning i skabelsen af bygningsværker. I 1700-tallets arkitektur blev tankegangen implementeret i skabelsen af offentlige institutioner så som fængselsvæsenet, og i Danmark satte det sig eksempelvis igennem i nyklassicisten C.F. Hansens arresthus i København. Arresthuset blev
indrettet med enkeltceller, da isolation og bøn blev anset som den indsattes vej til et
moralsk liv. Mennesket blev tænkt med i bygningen, ikke som det var, men som det
skulle være. Modernismens arkitektur tog skridtet videre fra offentlige bygningsværker til boligens rum, stadig med den forudsætning, at arkitekturen var mere end
en ramme for livsudfoldelse, den var rammesættende for denne.
Dette iscenesættes i et maleri som Garage, der som motivisk udgangspunkt
har Jacques Tatis satiriske film Mon Oncle fra 1958. Filmen omhandler det nyrige
ægtepar Arpels hverdag, i hvad der skulle være et hus med alverdens moderne bekvemmeligheder, en modernistisk perle. Men noget er galt, i den absurde og morsomme fremstilling af parrets hverdag fremgår det, at husets virkelige beboere ikke
22
23
er ægteparret, for de er underordnet møblementet, sti-anlægget, de tekniske installationer og huset i sig selv. De udlever en modernistisk drøm om fremtidens bolig og
liv, men i realiseringen af drømmen tager mekanikken og systemerne over og skubber de drømmende ud på et sidespor. De bliver gjort til malplacerede statister i deres
egen hverdag.
I bogen The good life – A guided visit to the houses of modernity lader arkitekten
Iñaki Ábalos ægteparret Arpels hus være repræsentant for et positivistisk tankesæt.3
Fru Arpels bror, Monseiur Hulot, fungerer i denne sammenhæng som det udefrakommende element, der viser skævheden og hullerne i systemet. Hvor filmens
Monsieur Hulot optræder som en parasit, hvis blotte tilstedeværelse får den positivistiske drøm om det perfekte liv til at slå revner, så fungerer på tilsvarende vis de
ekspressive strøg og de rent maleriske og abstrakte felter i værket Garage som de
elementer, der ophæver den realistiske repræsentation. Det orange rækværk i nederste venstre hjørne er langt mere end et funktionelt rækværk – det består af ekspressive og maleriske strøg, der taler om maleakten og henviser til sig selv, løsrevet
fra en funktion. De orange strøg fungerer umiddelbart som optegningsstreger i maleriet, men det er ikke kompositionen eller figurerne, de optegner. Derimod er de løse og ekspressive strøg på den mørkegrønne baggrund, der ligger som en dunkel
malstrøm under maleriets motiv, og løsriver det fra en realistisk grund. For motivets
realisme virker strøgene funktionsløse og bidrager dermed til realismens opløsning.
Og denne opløsning understøttes i realismen selv. Garagens store, mørke uudgrundelige dyb suger beskuerens blik til sig, men er på samme tid afvisende og lukket –
der trænger ingen former ud af mørket. Illusionen er der, men brydes ved at blive
opløst i billedfladens forskelligartede elementer. Garage bliver til et værk, der på én
gang handler om nødvendigheden af at fastholde drømmen om fremtiden, og samtidig er en påmindelse om, at den fuldstændige rationalisering af vores liv rummer faren for, at vi ikke selv kan være til stede i det perfekte liv.
I et værk som The Future as a Sphere fra 2011 er der klare referencer til både
oplysningstidens og modernismens idealisme, men Havsteen-Mikkelsen problematiserer på sin egen måde deres fælles tro på forløsningen igennem videnskab.
Selvom motivet er inspireret af en bygning af Bernard Tschumi og Rem Koolhaas
fra Parc de la Villette i Paris, så refererer den sfæriske kugle i billedets midte også til
Étienne-Louis Boullées aldrig opførte monument over Newton fra 1700-tallet og til
Richard Buckminster Fullers geodesiske kupler fra 1960’erne. Det sfæriske motiv
har ikke udelukkende referencer til arkitekturhistorien, men åbner også for allusioner til spådomskraft og usikre udsigelser om fremtiden, og ydermere er det ikke
fremtiden, kuglen giver et indblik i, men en forvrængning af nutiden — af kuglens
umiddelbare omgivelser. Der er maleteknisk en modsætning mellem kuglen og dens
omgivelser: Hvor området uden for kuglen består af klart definerede og adskilte felter, hvor de enkelte penselstrøg ikke træder frem, så er kuglen udført mere let og
ekspressivt, og strøg og farver glider over i hinanden for helt at forsvinde i toner af
hvidhed i kuglens øverste del. Den fremtid, værket viser, er hverken idealiseret eller
struktureret, men er en forvrænget spejling af nutiden, der er ekspressiv, personlig
og uvis.
Det er således ikke en forblændet fascination af arkitektur, der bærer
Havsteen-Mikkelsens værker, det er derimod en erkendelse af, hvor vigtigt det er at
reflektere over de rammer, vi lever vores liv igennem. Det er rummenes sociale
aspekter og den tilhørende livsverden med deres mentale rum, som han udforsker.
Med maleriske midler fører han motivet tilbage til udgangspunktet, til modellen for
bygningen, og skaber hermed en kritisk stillingtagen til idéen bag. Kritisk og bevidst
arbejder han med de traditioner, der er indlejret i maleriets historie, til kompositionsmæssigt og stilistisk at problematisere det indhold, hans motiver omhandler. De
stramme geometriske figurer, den ekspressive penselføring og det overgjorte perspektiv bliver greb, der også peger ud over maleriets ramme – de bliver til udsagn
om rumdannelser og udsagn om forholdet mellem det personlige og det sociale i
denne bevægelse. Hans malerier er subtile undersøgelser af forholdet mellem arkitektoniske og mentale strukturer, der i udstillingens overordnede tema bliver til et
forhold til fremtiden. En fremtid der begynder hjemme, når vi begynder at overveje,
hvorfor vi bor, som vi gør. At det ikke er arkitekturen, der undersøger sig selv, men
derimod et andet rumskabende medie, maleriet, gør undersøgelserne stærke og vedkommende. Men de rækker videre end som så, for i maleriets undersøgelser af arkitektoniske strukturer undersøger det også sig selv, i grænsen mellem realisme og abstraktion.
Dina Vester Feilberg, mag.art. i Kunsthistorie
———
(Noter) 1. Alain de Botton (2006): Lykkens arkitektur, side 13. • 2. Ibid, side 62-63. •
3. Iñaki Ábalos (2001): The Good Life - A guided visit to the houses of modernity, side 72.
24
(previous page/forrige side)
DOMINO (detail/detalje), 2010
< MODERSIAN SPACE, 2011
The Bridge, 2009
< DISCOURSE ON THE INSIDE (detail/detalje), 2010
DELIRIOUS DISASTER, 2009
White Prison, 2009
The Institution, 2009 >
Real House, 2009
The Parking House, 2006
Chuey House, 2008
The Pool, 2006 >
Billboards, 2007 (next page/næste side)
< Office, 2008
HOTEL JUVENTUS, 2009
< Health House, 2008
Corridor, 2006
(next page/næste side)
Mountain of Solitude, 2010
< Villa in the Exhibition, 2010
The View From Nowhere, 2010
(next page/næste side)
GARAGE, 2010
GARAGE, 2010
ENJOY THE SHADOWS, ENJOY THE SUN, 2011
And then the Countryside?, 2011 >
< Cosmic Energy House, 2011
HOMEMADE, 2011
THE Future as a Sphere, 2011
< PLAYHOUSE, 2011
THE ESCAPE BUTTON, 2009
———WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION
/ VÆRKER PÅ UDSTILLINGEN
Discourse on the Inside, 2010
Oil on Canvas
135 x 100 cm.
Private Collection
Driveway, 2007
Oil on Canvas
134 x 184 cm.
Private Collection
Domino, 2010
Oil on Canvas
135 x 100 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Enjoy the Shadows, Enjoy the Sun, 2011
Oil on Canvas
105 x 132 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Accumulator, 2008
Print
75 x 59 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
And then the Countryside?, 2011
Oil on Canvas
155 x 107 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Billboards, 2007
Oil on Canvas
108 x 184 cm.
Private Collection
Chamber, 2009
Oil on Canvas
38 x 60 cm.
Private Collection
Garage, 2010
Oil on Canvas
103 x 155 cm.
Private Collection
Health House, 2008
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Homemade, 2011
Oil on Canvas
190 x 155 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Hotel Juventus, 2009
Oil on Canvas
90 x 125 cm.
Private Collection
Chuey House, 2008
Oil on Canvas
105 x 184 cm.
The Danish Art Foundation
Corridor, 2006
Oil on Canvas
100 x 130 cm.
Private Collection
Cosmic Energy House, 2011
Oil on Canvas
105 x 78 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Delirious Disaster, 2009
Oil on Canvas
178 x 120 cm.
Private Collection
Hotel Utopia, 2007
Oil crayon on paper
42 x 60 cm.
Private Collection
House on a Hill, 2009
Oil on Canvas
55 x 60 cm.
Private Collection
Industrial City, 2010
Oil on Canvas
80 x 55 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Into the Horizon, 2008
Oil on Canvas
80 x 105 cm.
Private Collection
Modersian Space, 2011
Oil on Canvas
184 x 105 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Mountain of Solitude, 2010
Oil on Canvas
40 x 65 cm.
Private Collection
Office, 2008
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
Private Collection
Playhouse, 2011
Oil on Canvas
85 x 55 cm.
Private Collection
The Future as a Sphere, 2011
Oil on Canvas
153 x 182 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
The Institution, 2009
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
The Parking House, 2006
Oil on Canvas
100 x 130 cm.
Private Collection
The Pool, 2006
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
Collection of Claus Skovhøj Olsen
Real House, 2009
Oil on Canvas
102 x 140 cm.
Private Collection
Rotaprint, 2010
Oil on Canvas
105 x 134 cm.
Private Collection
Shadows in the House, 2008
Oil on Canvas
63 x 70 cm.
Private Collection
Silo, 2010
Oil on Canvas
132 x 100 cm.
Private Collection
The Sitting Machine, 2011
Oil on Canvas
140 x 80 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
The Staircase, 2006
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
Private Collection
The View From Nowhere, 2010
Oil on Canvas
105 x 105 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Treasure Hunt, 2010
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
The Escape Button, 2009
Oil on Canvas, 130 x 100 cm.
City of Copenhagen's
Art Collection
Villa in the Exhibition, 2010
Oil on Canvas
178 x 120 cm.
Private Collection
Villa in the Woods, 2008
Oil on Canvas
150 x 100 cm.
The Danish Art Foundation
White Prison, 2009
Acrylic on paper
73 x 53 cm.
Private Collection
White Squares, Black Life, 2007
Pencil on Paper
65 x 50 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Spacey, 2008
Oil on Canvas
127 x 165 cm.
Private Collection
That Man will be Revolutionary who
The Bridge, 2009
can Revolutionize Himself, 2011
Oil on Canvas
Oil on Canvas, 134 x 184 cm.
105 x 184 cm.
Courtesy of the Artist
Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Wegter
———LIST OF WORKS illustrated
/ Liste over gengivne værker
———CV
Domino, 2010
Oil on Canvas
135 x 100 cm.
Office, 2008
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
Homemade, 2011
Oil on Canvas
190 x 155 cm.
Modersian Space, 2011
Oil on Canvas
184 x 105 cm.
Hotel Juventus, 2009
Oil on Canvas
90 x 125 cm.
Future as a Sphere, 2011
Oil on Canvas
153 x 182 cm.
The Bridge, 2009
Oil on Canvas
105 x 184 cm.
Health House, 2008
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
Playhouse, 2011
Oil on Canvas
85 x 55 cm.
Discourse on the Inside, 2010
Oil on Canvas
135 x 100 cm.
Corridor, 2006
Oil on Canvas
100 x 130 cm.
The Escape Button, 2009
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm
Delirious Disaster, 2009
Oil on Canvas
178 x 120 cm.
Mountain of Solitude, 2010
Oil on Canvas
40 x 65 cm.
White Prison, 2009
Acrylic on paper
73 x 53 cm.
Villa in the Exhibition, 2010
Oil on Canvas
178 x 120 cm.
The Institution, 2009
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
The View From Nowhere, 2010
Oil on Canvas
105 x 105 cm.
Real House, 2009
Oil on Canvas
102 x 140 cm.
Garage, 2010
The Parking House, 2006
Oil on Canvas
100 x 130 cm.
Enjoy the Shadows,
Enjoy the Sun, 2011
Oil on Canvas
105 x 130 cm.
Chuey House, 2008
Oil on Canvas
184 x 105 cm.
The Pool, 2006
Oil on Canvas
130 x 100 cm.
Billboards, 2007
Oil on Canvas
108 x 184 cm.
Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen
b. 1977, Aeroe, Denmark.
www.asmundhavsteen.net
———Education / UDDANNELSE
2003-09
2007-08
2004-05
1996-03
MFA, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen.
Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Hamburg.
CCA Research Program, Kitakyushu, Japan.
MA in literature and philosophy, University of Copenhagen.
———Solo exhibitions / SOLO UDSTILLINGER
2011
2010
2008
2007
2006
2004 The Future Begins at Home, Rønnebæksholm, Denmark.
Estrangement City, Politikens Galleri, Copenhagen.
Meditations on the Uncanny, Helene Nyborg Contemporary, Copenhagen.
Life in the Box, Helene Nyborg Contemporary, Copenhagen.
Supernumeral (with Emil W. Hertz), Marstal Museum, Aeroe.
Mentalscapes, Helene Nyborg Contemporary, Copenhagen.
Frontal/Sideways, The Scandinavian House, Prague.
Melting Barricades (with Inuk Silis Høegh), North Atlantic House,
Copenhagen, and Katuaq, Nuuk, Greenland.
Collapsing Structures (with Rune Søchting and Jonas Olesen), The Projectroom,
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen.
———Selected group exhibitions
/ UDVALGTE GRUPPE UDSTILLINGER
Oil on Canvas
103 x 155 cm.
And then the Countryside?, 2011
Oil on Canvas
155 x 107 cm.
Cosmic Energy House, 2011
Oil on Canvas
105 x 78 cm.
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61
2011 2010
2009
Enter II, Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark.
Radical Adults II, Galerie Barbara Seiler, Zürich.
Summer Salon, Helene Nyborg Contemporary, Copenhagen.
Primitive Accumulation, Fold Gallery, London.
Uferhallen Kunstaktien, Uferhallen, Berlin.
3-1 Kunstauktion, Kunsten, Aalborg.
Painterly Delight II, Ystad Konstmuseum, Sweden.
Geist III, Auguststr. 17, Berlin.
No Food No Drink No Sticky Lollies, Stadtbad Wedding, Berlin.
Painterly Delight, Art Centre Silkeborg Bad, Denmark.
Greetings to Ib Geertsen, Danish Graphic Center, Copenhagen.
Radical Adults, The Forgotten Bar Project, Berlin.
CRW – Contemporary Reflections on Warfare, BKS Garage, Copenhagen.
Copenhagen City Art Collection 2006-2009, Copenhagen.
The Hello Show, Helene Nyborg Contemporary, Copenhagen.
Art in the Blood, Utzon Center, Aalborg.
A Formal Figure, Galerie im Regierungsviertel, Berlin.
Out of Wedding, UferHallen, Berlin.
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003 Formation, Halle 41, Berlin.
Exit, Gl. Strand, Copenhagen.
Jahresausstellung, HfBK, Hamburg.
InnenRaum, Galerie MøllerWitt, Aarhus, Denmark.
Autolabor, Brandenburgischer Kunstverein Potsdam e.V., Germany.
PT07, Vestjyllands Kunstmuseum, Tistrup, Denmark.
Proverbs, Portalen, Greve, Denmark.
Re-thinking Nordic Colonialism, The Living Art Museum, Nifka,
Reykjavik, Iceland.
Contemporary Art, Spring Exhibition, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen.
Total Production, Islands Brygge 83, Copenhagen.
Typhoon, Maeda Studio, Kitakyushu, Japan.
Minority Report, Aarhus, Denmark.
Young Contemporary Art, Frederiks Bastion, Copenhagen and Inkonst,
Malmø, Sweden.
———Bibliography / BIBLIOGRAFI
2011 2010
2009 2008 2007
2006 2005 2004
Dina Vester Feilberg: Subtile Undersøgelser af Rum, Kunstmagasinet Janus, June 2011 Estrangement City, Politiken, October 28th, 2010.
Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen, Information, July 24th,, 2010.
Meditations on the Uncanny, catalogue, Lettre Publishing, Copenhagen, 2010.
Kunsten at føle sig hjemme, radio-interview, P1 – Vita, May, 2010.
Lettre International 20 Jahre Mauerfall (visual contribution),
Berlin und Europa, 2009.
Beyond Architecture – Imaginative buildings and fictional cities, p. 40-41.
Edited by Lucas Freireiss, Gestalten Verlag, Berlin, 2009.
Melting Barricades, Sleek Magazine, Berlin, December 2008.
The Way We Live Now (visual contribution), Lettre Internationale, 2008.
Bente Scavenius: Klinisk renset for liv (review), Børsen, August 2008.
Torben Weirup: Udflugt til Blokland, Danish Art 07, Aschehoug,
Copenhagen, 2007.
Jesper Rasmussen: På Kant med Byens Dybder, Kunstmagasinet Janus,
September 2007.
The Celeste Art Prize 2007, catalogue, London, 2007.
Proverbs, catalogue, Portalen, Greve, 2006.
Frontal/Sideways, catalogue, The Scandinavian House, Prague, 2006.
May Misfeldt: Melting Barricades, Danish Art 05, Aschehoug, Copenhagen, 2006.
Intimate Absence, Patrick Huse (ed.), Delta Press, and Henie Onstad
Kunstsenter, Norway, 2005.
CCA Research Program 2004-2005, cataloque, Kitakyushu, Japan, 2005.
Melting Barricades, catalogue, North Atlantic House, Copenhagen, 2004.
———Other Activities / ØVRIGE AKTIVITETER
2009-10Founder of Büro für Urban Praktik with Boris Boll-Johansen.
62
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / TAK:
Our many thanks to everyone that have lent works to the exhibition.
Thanks to the Danish Art Counsil and Børge Jakobsen & Søn for generous
support to the exhibition, and thanks to the Beckett Foundation and Grosserer
L.F.Foghts Foundation for support to the catalogue.
/ Tak til alle der har udlånt værker til udstillingen. Tak til Statens Kunstråds
Billedkunstudvalg og Børge Jakobsen & Søn A/S for støtte til udstillingen, og
tak til Beckett Fonden og Grosserer L.F. Foghts Fond for støtte til kataloget.
We also wish to thank / Vi ønsker også at takke:
Ivan Andersen, Helene Nyborg Andersen, Hanna Bergman, Anders Bjerre,
Boris Boll-Johansen, Claus Due, Anna Engberg-Pedersen, Søren Fahnøe, Cecilia Froger, Cecil Boysen Haarder, Poul Qvist Hansen, Andreas Harbsmeier,
Caroline Engberg Havsteen, Johan Engberg Havsteen, Collette Havsteen-Mikkelsen, Hvejsel Transport, Peter Fugl Jakobsen, Søren Lose, Kirstine Ersbøll
Meyhoff, Karsten Wind Meyhoff, Ulrik Møller, Lea Nielsen, Troels Helmer
Nielsen, Joakim Quistorff-Refn, Steffen Rayburn-Maarup, Andreas Ruby, Ilka
Ruby.
This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition
The Future Begins at Home
at Rønnebæksholm, Næstved, August 14th – October 2nd 2011.
/ Dette katalog er publiceret i forbindelse med udstillingen
Fremtiden Begynder Hjemme
på Rønnebæksholm, Næstved, 14. august – 2. oktober 2011.
Editor / Redaktør: Dina Vester Feilberg & Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen
Copy-editor / Korrektur: Søren Fahnøe & Collette Havsteen-Mikkelsen
Translation / Oversættelse: Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
Design: Claus Due, Designbolaget
Photographer / Fotograf: Lea Nielsen
Printer / Trykkeri: Clausen Offset
© 2011 Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen & Rønnebæksholm
No part of this catalogue may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever
without written permission excerpt in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.
/ Brug eller kopiering af dele af dette katalog er ikke tilladt uden skriftlig tilladelse, undtaget herfra er korte uddrag til brug i anmeldelser og kritiske artikler.
This catalogue is kindly supported by
/ Dette katalog er udgivet med støtte fra
Grosserer L.F.Foghts Fond
Beckett Fonden
ISBN: 978-87-992059-8-1
This project is supported by The Danish Arts Council
/ Projektet er støttet af Statens Kunstråds Billedkunstudvalg:
Main sponsor / Storsponsor:
64