THE GRAND old man of modern Danish photography was Keld Helmer-Petersen (b. 1920). In 1948, Helmer-Petersen published his book 122 Color Photographs, which anticipated the colour photography of the 1960’s. He became the major dynamic in Danish photography and helped instigate the foundation of the first Danish Museum of Photographic Art. Besides Keld Helmer-Petersen, other artists like Viggo Rivad, Tove Kurtzweil, Kirsten Klein and Per Bak Jensen have all influenced the contemporary art scene and, with them, art photography finally started to become institutionalised.
In Denmark, there are no dominant institutions to set the agenda as, for example, the Düsseldorf School in Germany, or the Helsinki School in Finland. Still, the scene for contemporary art photography has never been more energetic and successful. The last couple of years have also witnessed the private market to expand substantially in Denmark. In January 2006, the first gallery in Copenhagen to focus exclusively on contemporary art photography opened (Peter Lav Gallery) with its mission to promote and further the careers of selected, emerging Scandinavian artists working with photography as their primary medium. This gallery is located in a former plant building in the industrial district of Valby - one of the most significant contemporary art communities in Copenhagen.
‘the scene for contemporary art photography has never been more energetic and successful’
Some of the emerging young contemporaries collaborating with the Peter Lav Gallery project have achieved international recognition. Torben Eskerod’s (b. 1961) preferred genre is portraiture, motivated by an interest in the individual’s singularities and distinguishing features. It is the very personality of the portrayed person that burns itself onto the camera lens and is communicated unfiltered to the viewer. His cogent, minimalistic and technically sharp working method is also present in the works of the German artist, Thomas Ruff. Eskerod employs relatively few artistic effects and a toned down set design, nevertheless, the pictures are replete with atmosphere and a brash presence - revealing his field of interest: existential questions about life and death. Eskerod has completed three major series of images: Friends and Strangers (2006) of men between the age of forty and fifty, about identity as well as masculinity; Campo Verano (2007) reinterpreting the photographic portraits affixed to grave markers in Campo Verano, the largest cemetery in Rome; and Register (Life and Death Masks) from 2001, which, with a similarly minimalistic expression, takes a photographic approach to the transitory nature of ephemeral existence.
Adam Jeppesen’s (b. 1978) series Wake (published by Steidl 2008) was assembled over a period of several months in the secluded backwoods of Finland, taken while travelling on assignment. The photographs are characterised by the dwelling on little details and incidents that, on the face of it, do not contain a grand epic. In Jeppesen’s universe, though, apparently insignificant motifs are transformed into an atmospheric tableaux pregnant with meaning. As such, the pictures are utmost silent and puzzling, since the narratives are almost non-existent. His latest series, Headlines, consists of photographs shot during an eighteen-month expedition from the North Pole to the South Pole through the American continents.
‘Because of the extreme close-up, the pictures look like real landscapes, as they fit the Western landscape tradition with its distant horizons. ’
Nothing is what it appears to be, at least not in the installations and photo-based artworks of Jakob Jensen (b. 1970). Employing various media (installation, video, photography, sculpture, sound, site-specific and public intervention) his artworks deal with our understanding of the natural world. In Jensen’s universe there is always a tension between what we think we see, as opposed to what we actually see. Just as there is a tension between what we think we know about the world, as opposed to the actual state of the arts. Jensen has, for example, photographed cheese surfaces as in Arizona 5 (Borderland), 2002-2004, and a nylon net on a scaffolding in Superlandspace, 1999. Because of the extreme close-up, the pictures look like real landscapes, as they fit the Western landscape tradition with its distant horizons.
According to the dictionary, the word ‘marchland’ describes a neutral zone between two countries. A borderland without clear demarcations of boundaries. All photographs from Lykke Andersen’s (b. 1974) latest series Marchland (2008) have been shot in the snow-covered mountain area between Ukraine and Poland. Once a marchland, but today it’s a place defined by its unmistakable frontiers and control checkpoints to keep the West protected from illegal immigration. Marchland also deals with the political issues of a specific place. Issues which are not primarily visible in her photographic account, as she puts attention to the more poetic qualities of the landscape.
Peter Lav is the director of the gallery of the same name in Copenhagen.
www.plgallery.dk
