Every day we build upon the existing. We tear down and build new. 

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For his second solo exhibition in the gallery, Asger Harbou Gjerdevik has created new works in three different media: ceramics, watercolor and painting. The works were made in the spring and summer of 2020 in three phases: on the coast of Northwest Zealand, at The Danish Art Workshops and in South Harbour in Copenhagen. In each area, the different facilities and surroundings have played a role in the creation of the works. 

The painting ’Early Morning’ presents references to light, life, humor, everyday life, nature, beginnings and endings (’DONE’). The title opens up the work and invites the viewer into the sphere that Gjerdevik has been in during the process. At the same time, there are elements of different inspirations from art history, architecture and nature around him, with classical themes seen from a contemporary perspective. Gjerdevik often uses symbols that refer to time, life and death e.g. the skull, the flame, the tree, the sun.  

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The parenthetical exhibition title ”we build upon ruins” brings to mind the fascination with ruins in art history. Ruins, as architectural decay motifs, have been visual signs of the passage of time and change as well as symbols of the transition between form and formless, between culture and nature. We stand on the shoulders of the past, and we build on it, while at the same time something inevitable must pass away.

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Asger Harbou Gjerdevik works within painting, sculpture, collage and drawing. Film science, music, art history and architecture are sources of inspiration. The human being is in the center of compositions filled with iconic symbols and graphic elements. Gjerdevik is a graduate from Central Saint Martins and has an MFA from Royal College of Art, London 2017. His debut solo exhibition in Copenhagen was ‘Dive’ at Alice Folker in 2018, and in 2019 Kunstforeningen Gl. Strand exhibited his critically acclaimed solo exhibition ’Driving Home for Christmas’.

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The exhibition is part I of II and the sequel will be exhibited in Politikens Forhal in January 2021.