It is with great pleasure that ARoS can once again introduce a large solo Kvium exhibition – this time in the form of the series of paintings entitled Fools, which consists of about 200 individual paintings measuring 30 x 30 cm of faces from Kvium’s easily recognisable character gallery. This series of pictures has occupied Kvium’s attention since the beginning of the 1990s, and it is one that he does not yet see himself as being finished with.

TRAGIC-COMICAL AND GROTESQUE

In Kvium’s symbol-laden art we are confronted with human foolishness. His androgynous and deformed figures represent a view of humanity that concerns us all irrespective of sex, age and social capacity. The series entitled Foolsis no exception to this. With expressions both tragicomic and grotesque, the series of paintings stands there as uncompromising portraits of foolish mankind and our existential conditions of life.

The recurrent motifs of Kvium’s art: the skull, the egg, the blindfold and the lemon that are bitter reminders that mankind’s days are numbered also appear in the Fools series. Eye to eye, we meet all these many faces inviting us to accompany the artist into the deepest recesses in the human mind.

INSISTENT DIALOGUE

The insistent dialogue between work of art and viewer that is occasioned by Fools represents the starting point for the exhibition’s architectural framework. The series of paintings is thus be staged as though Michael Kvium’s many faces were stage actors confronting us on a stage. The inevitable question then arises as to who is performing for whom – the work of art or the visitor to the museum?