[no title] 1995

Curator: This small etching by Per Kirkeby, held in the Tate collection, presents an intriguing vision. What feelings arise as you look at it? Editor: It feels raw, almost violently etched. Like a landscape viewed during a storm, or perhaps remembered through a haze of emotion. The lines are so charged. Curator: Kirkeby often explored the interplay between nature and culture. Notice the suggestion of a building in the background, almost swallowed by the wildness. It evokes a sense of humanity's precarious place within a larger, more powerful world. Editor: Yes, a very powerful world of memory and of being, almost like trauma. This is not a comfortable image, but an honest one. Curator: Indeed. Kirkeby's use of seemingly chaotic lines actually creates a structured space, full of archetypal, primordial images. Editor: An image that stays with you, long after you've turned away. Curator: A powerful distillation of landscape and psyche.