Michael Kvium: "Picture of Conquest", 1992-1993. Signed. 165 x 190 cm. Estimate: DKK 800,000

Humanity's Seamier Sides as Seen by Michael Kvium

A deformed creature squatting with a skull on top of its bandaged head scowls at us with a sharp gaze. The creator of the creature is the Danish artist Michael Kvium, whose monumental work "Picture of Conquest" from the early 1990s is part of the summer Live Auction in Copenhagen.

The offered "Picture of Conquest" belongs to one of Michael Kvium's (b. 1955) most important series, "The Heir Images", where we are led straight into his deeply original imagery. As usual, one is a little shaken by the harsh confrontation with the degenerate figure in the painting, and it is precisely this contact between the work and the viewer and the subsequent reaction that is important to the artist. The goal is to facilitate a dialogue about existential issues and the role of art in society.

With his raw images, Kvium stands as a radical loner in Danish art, but his gruesome motifs continue to divide audiences between dedicated supporters and doubting disbelievers. Since the 1980s, he has depicted the seamier sides of life with absurd and poignant irony and turned us humans inside out with his morbid creatures who are both literally and figuratively naked. This is also the case with the work up for auction on 14 June at 4 pm (CEST). This museum-worthy painting is followed by a collection of eight of Kvium’s bronze figures, where the lineup of usual suspects have changed their hue to a bronze.