25 Nov 2008 to 24 Jan 2009
Hours : Tuesday - Saturday 10.00am - 6.00pm
Victoria Miro Gallery
16 Wharf Road
N1 7RW
London
United Kingdom
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John K�rner, Morten, 2008 acrylic on canvas, 150 x 120 cms, 59.1 x 47.28 inches Courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro Gallery. Photograph Anders Sune Berg
John K�rner: War Problems 25 November 2008 - 24 January 2009 Private view Tuesday 25 November, 6 - 8pm
Victoria Miro is pleased to announce the gallery�s second exhibition by Danish artist John K�rner. War Problems is a new series of sixteen large-scale works, each representing a Danish solider killed in Afghanistan and each bearing a single name � Anders, Mikkel, Thomas, Sonny.
Recently on view as part of the 2008 U-Turn Copenhagen Quadriennial, the paintings on exhibition are a significant departure for the artist, who was drawn to the subject matter after reading local news reports: �I had lots of questions about what Denmark was doing in the War on Terror in Afghanistan and why a country like ours was involved when we never used to take part in wars'.
Unlike a traditional war artist, K�rner himself has not visited Afghanistan nor witnessed first hand how the sixteen soldiers lived and died. From the outset, his intention was to create an image of a dead Danish soldier that was independent of insider knowledge or a result of investigative research: �I want to be equal with everyone else, not a step ahead by discovering something they didn�t know.� The sixteen paintings do not exist as portraits of the individual soldiers or as documentation of the actual events of their deaths, but rather function as a collective expression of the human tragedy imparted by this war.
K�rner�s signature use of watered-down acrylics, bleeding brushwork and intense colours is seemingly at odds with emotive and often disturbing scenes of war. In Thorbj�rn three local women stand around a body, red paint erupting from the soldier�s chest. In another work, Henrik, black paint is applied in staccato strokes across the canvas like a spray of shrapnel, below which lies the body of yet another soldier, clearly identified by the Danish flag on his uniform.
John K�rner has long referred to his paintings as �problems�: playful explorations of the medium's duality � its physical presence and its descriptive power. Here, these �problems� of war offer up a visual encounter as well as open up space for the continuation of debates around current international conflicts.
All quotes taken from the accompanying exhibition publication, War Problems.
A fully illustrated, limited edition book is available with a text by BBC current affairs reporter Becky Milligan. In her interview with artist John K�rner, Milligan relays personal memories of reporting in Afghanistan in the 1990s under the Taliban.
War Problems 48 pages, 18 colour plates
JOHN K�RNER was born in �rhus, Denmark in 1967. He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Copenhagen between 1992 and 1998. K�rner has had solo exhibitions at ARoS �rhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark (2006), Moderna Museet, Sweden (2005) and Herning Museum of Art, Denmark (2003). His work was recently included in many group exhibitions including U-Turn Copenhagen Quadriennial (2008) and the Carnegie Art Award 2008 Touring Exhibition (on view at Royal College of Art, London 13 - 23 November 2008).
