A true icon of modernism and one of the driving forces behind Danish surrealism, Richard Mortensen (1910-1993) is being honored with a retrospective of his impressive work both inside and outside Denmark.
Form, surface, space, color, point and line: Mortensen's strict yet playful visual language pays full attention to every detail - or deliberately dissolves them. Between Lines is the first major retrospective in 30 years and shows over 80 paintings and works on paper from the artist's 60-year career. Richard Mortensen was a pioneer of a new development in abstraction, driven by his deep belief in the power of art and its potential for social change. He began with surrealist experiments in the 1930s and later became one of the leading figures in Concrete Art. In the 1950s, he was exhibited in Paris at the Galerie Denise René.
Richard Mortensen, Botanisk portræt, 1937, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum.
Historical, literary, geographical and political allusions repeatedly appear in the titles of Mortensen's works, emphasizing his ambition to illuminate current political problems. His ambition to develop a purely abstract visual language was elevated to a monumental level in the 1970s. Against the backdrop of global political unrest from the 1960s onwards, Mortensen increasingly moved towards a simplification of form until his death in 1993. He found inspiration in Zen Buddhism and Taoism, with their sense of purity and the interaction of opposing forces.
March 23 to September 1, 2024
