Exhibition

In 1966, he painted a large artwork for the Spring Exhibition at Charlottenborg, which covered the entire back wall of the landing of the central staircase. It was almost 10 meters high and featured a structure of 2 times 24 horizontal stripes, all of equal width. The 24 stripes repeated in the same order 24 spectral colours that were randomly distributed. The painting was symptomatic of the art situation at the time, characterized by minimal art’s low-key sensibility with keywords such as emptiness, anonymity, and depersonalization.

Like his other works, this colour wall communicates no common values of any kind, no idealism. It is an autonomous image that does not point beyond itself because there are no possibilities for that in the value emptiness in which we find ourselves. And the emptiness is amplified by the large format. The only thing that can be communicated if one is to remain true to the situation is the total emptiness. Emptiness is the message – carried by the grand experience and the beauty that the colours provide.

The deep-perspective space has been completely flattened by the regular repetition of the same structure, which cannot be read as figurations. Also, the frame that previously enclosed the perspectival picture-space has been abolished. Instead, a new illusion has emerged – an illusion of boundlessness – as the horizontal stripes seem to extend infinitely to both sides, and an illusion that the colour stripes come out into the room and fill it, coming out to surround the viewer. It is as if the viewer has become the focal point after the deep-perspective focal point has been dissolved in the painting’s all-over structure, which lacks a single focal point. The colour waves even seem to have dissolved the painting as an object; they appear to dematerialize it, turning it into immaterial colour waves in an empty spatial situation where the viewer is of central importance. The dissolution of the object character is further supported by the monumental format, which prevents the viewer from embracing the painting within their field of vision.

Anonymity and depersonalization can be read throughout the structure of the painting, where all ego-centered reflections have been avoided and excluded compared to earlier art. The enormous format in itself is a depersonalization, as it surpasses the size of the human body. The simple form element – the stripe – is anonymous; it cannot be attributed with ego-reflecting values. By the regular reproduction in an all-over structure, the value of each individual stripe in the mass is further nullified. The colours are selected according to an anonymous colour system – the spectral colours – and by distributing the stripes using a method of randomness, personal choice has been avoided, resulting in new colour combinations that break with conventional ego-centered choices. 

The painting method itself is anonymous. The painting was done by Poul Gernes himself but could just as well have been executed by any other completely random person. Any form of ego-centered composition has been avoided through the regular reproduction of the same structure. The painting constitutes a totality. It is not a matter of balancing visual elements against each other in a hierarchical composition. The hierarchical, vertical order has been dissolved in favour of a horizontal order where all elements are at the same level, are completely equal, and therefore have the same validity within the mass.

With the large wall at Charlottenborg, Poul Gernes gave himself a decoration project. He thereby demonstrated himself as one of the greatest monumental artists we have at present. He proved it again when he participated in the Danish Arts Foundation’s competitions in 1967, both for a sculpture to decorate Copenhagen’s old Grønttorv and for a decoration for the new buildings of the Central Administration on Slotsholmen. During 1967 and 1968, he exhibited at a number of schools, first in Birkerød at Toftevang School and lastly in Herlev, where he filled a total of five schools at once. 

At that time, it was a necessity for him to gain access to exhibition spaces that were large enough to display his art in its full extent, including the many series and large sculptures he had created over the previous two years. The exhibitions gave him an overview of his own production, provided him with a different audience, a different interface than the usual gallery and exhibition audience. But these exhibitions primarily showcased the environmental, spatial, and monumental aspects of his works from the past few years – his series and large sculptures. He demonstrated once again his abilities as a monumental artist.

But it was not until 1968 that the Danish Arts Foundation awarded him his first public decoration project for the new County Hospital in Herlev. It still exists only as a draft plan but has had the consequence that he was assigned the task of being the artistic advisor for the entire hospital environment, so far only realized in the test wing at the County Hospital in Gentofte.