1 juni – 1 september 2024, Gl. Holtegaard, Denmark
Du bliver selv gammel
Duo show with Kirsten Christensen & Linnéa Sjöberg
Gammel Holtegaard’s summer exhibition 2024 You Too Will Get Old presents two solo shows by what at first glance would seem to be very different artists. Currently experiencing a major revival in the Danish art world, award-winning artist Kirsten Christensen (1943) presents an exclusive selection of works on loan from museums and private collectors, some of them never on view to the public before. At the other end of Gammel Holtegaard is Swedish artist Linnéa Sjöberg (1983) with a choice selection of key works from her oeuvre as her Danish debut.
The exhibition You Too Will Get Old singles out central aspects of Kirsten Christensen and Linnéa Sjöberg’s art to chart the cross-generational affinity between two artists exploring the autobiographical in classical, time-consuming and carefully crafted media. Both Kirsten Christensen’s ceramic images and Linnéa Sjöberg’s woven textiles embrace a clash of tempi and materials. Text also forms an integral part of works addressing family trauma, memory and death. The exhibition title You Too Will Get Old is taken from Kirsten Christensen’s series of the same name from 1979 in which she uses her mother’s illness and dying to address death, old age and taboos about ageing at an individual and collective level. Kirsten Christensen avoids conventional aesthetics to focus on threats, taboos and discomfort. As she puts it herself: “Good taste is the biggest threat to art”.
Linnéa Sjöberg’s textile works interweave textiles, garments and small objects from her own life and the life of her family. Like Kirsten Christensen she explores death and the passage of time, as well as the passing down of family trauma from generation to generation. Whilst both artists take material from the darker side of life, they also draw strength and energy from its transitoriness and a deep-seated awareness of our capacity to transform ourselves, overcome adversity and rise from the ashes like the legendary phoenix. In this sense the title You Too Will Get Old can be read not only as a warning, but also as an expression of hope.
Kirsten Christensen’s works are at the forefront of You Too Will Get Old and fill most of Gammel Holtegaard’s exhibition space. The works include many that have been unseen since they were donated to Danish state institutions in the 1970s.
BIOS
Kirsten Christensen (b. 1943, Copenhagen) is a Danish ceramicist and painter and one of Denmark’s most outstanding artists. Her social-realist and often autobiographical ceramic works are at the heart of a unique oeuvre well represented in the collections Danish art museums and state institutions. Kirsten Christensen’s art has earned her numerous awards and accolades. As recently as March this year she received the New Carlsberg Foundation’s artist grant and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts’ Eckersberg Medal. She has also been awarded the Danish Arts Foundation’s lifetime stipend (2018). Christensen trained as a ceramicist at the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen before studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where she graduated in 1975.
Linnéa Sjöberg (b. 1983, Strömsund, Sweden) lives and works in Berlin. Her art involves dedicated research in which the circumstances of her own life form the basis for extremely time-consuming works, be they complex weavings or performative works involving occupying the same role for years. Sjöberg is a graduate of the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and also studied at Sweden’s University of Arts, Crafts and Design and Ölands Art School. Her works have been widely exhibited, including at Göteborg Kunsthal, Magasin III, Moderna Museet and the Athens Biennale of Contemporary Art.
Photo by David Stjernholm