Ivan Andersen: False Flat

Galleri Bo Bjerggaard is proud to present the exhibition False Flat—Danish artist Ivan Andersen’s fifth solo show in the gallery in Copenhagen.

In the exhibition catalogue literary critic and poet Lars Bukdahl starts the introductory text as follows:

“Ivan Andersen is showing new paintings at Galleri Bo Bjerggaard. The technique and materials are fabric collage with oil and acrylic paint (plus beeswax and thread). The images are based on screenshots of Eurosport and other live streams of sporting events, mainly cycling and skiing, but also long-distance running (individual disciplines, not collective ones like football, handball and other ball games). These beautiful, bustling images are formally complex but easy to read. They are about sports and all the things sports are about, and not about. About the beautiful noise of transposing the reality of sports from the screen to the canvas.”

Ivan Andersen (born 1968) graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2005 and is associated with the figurative painting, which was proclaimed as resurrected at the beginning of the new millennium and is particularly characterized by the pluralistic field of contemporary painting. He holds a prominent position in the generation of artists who in the 00’s revitalized the painting and placed it on the agenda as a relevant media.

Ivan Andersen works with painting as his preferred medium. He explores and restores the possibilities and spaces of painting. He is an artist who is occupied with the textural aspects of painting, the painting as a surface and the spatial displacements to which the canvas opens up. His works testify to a formal experimental approach to painting itself. He constantly oscillates between the abstract and the recognizable, and the exploration of this borderland is the driving force in his work. Influenced by the overlapping ‘windows’ from the computer media, he samples and puts into perspective a complex picture space, collage aesthetics and fragmentary portrayals of reality.

Lars Bukdahl finishes the catalogue text with these words:

“The title term is explained online: ‘A low-gradient climb, usually occurring partway up a steeper climb. So-called because while it may look deceptively flat and easy (especially after the steep climb preceding it), it is still a climb.’

Perhaps the cyclist in the painting is struggling to climb just such a false flat. The picture itself is truly flat, of course: fabric, paint and yarn on a canvas hanging vertically on a gallery wall. Indeed, the picture is an outright celebration of flatness and the victory of flatness over the long-abandoned—in two stages: TV screen and canvas—(itself illusory) depth of reality. The rider is cycling in place, a place of magnificent beauty.”

Ivan Andersen lives and works in Copenhagen after several years in Berlin. His works can be found in several important collections, including the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Ishøj and the KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg.

Catalogue