2.11. - 21.12.2013

We are pleased to announce a series of new ceramic sculptures by Nils Erik Gjerdevik in the gallery’s main room. It is the first time in 20 years that Gjerdevik will present a solo show consisting of only sculptures.

The sculptures are placed on black rustic steel tables – the placement of which will create a type of architectonic landscape. The sculptures encourage the viewer into an examination of the single works shapes, colors and space just as the relationship between the works, their placement, the rhythm and their relation to the space invites to a closer inspection.

In a somewhat psychedelic yet stringently composed universe, Gjerdevik challenges the viewer’s understanding of terms such as spatiality and composition. Some of the sculptures could resemble whole cities with floating halls, space stations, parking lots and a variety of organic shapes and forms. It thus ignites the viewer’s consideration and imagination.

“This is the foundation of the city: a net which serves as passage and as support. All the rest, instead of rising up, is hung below: rope-ladders, hammocks, houses made like sacks, clothes-hangers, terraces like gondolas, skins of water, gas jets, spits, baskets on strings, dumb-waiters, showers, trapezes and rings for children’s games, cable-cars, chandeliers, pots with trailing plants.”[1]

As with Italo Calvino’s invisible cities, Gjerdevik’s spacious compositions are a result of exuberant imagination. In a micro cosmos the cities branch out in the gallery’s white landscape. Where as Calvino’s cities all have names, Gjerdevik’s are without titles. The sculptures are suggestive in their characters but a conventional narrative does not unfold. Partially recognizable shapes are being robbed of their recognizability when the whole sculpture is viewed.

The sculptures are suggestive but also pure abstractions. Trying to relate their expression to a recognizable shape, such as an urban landscape, fails consistently when those thoughts are disturbed by abstractions and the regular appearance of previously unseen, evocative forms. Its dynamic quality helps maintain the viewers interest in examination, study and re-consideration of Gjerdeviks ceramic works.

Nils Erik Gjerdevik (1962) lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.