KÖNIG, WALTHER Per Kirkeby: The Complete Bricks Vol. 2: The Unrealized Projects

The second volume cataloguing the Danish artist’s iconic brick sculptures. Beginning in 1966, Per Kirkeby created more than 150 brick sculptures throughout his lifetime. Initially, Kirkeby was drawn to the essential qualities of bricks as a unit of architectural design and a symbol of human civilization – being the same size as the human hand. While Kirkeby was undoubtedly alluding to the simplicity and order of Minimalism at the time, the Danish artist was also looking beyond aesthetic purity to the pictorial and narrative possibilities of bricks. Although Kirkeby is revered for his painting, his brick sculptures represent his most instantly recognisable work, in a material so familiar that it is almost invisible. At once ornamental, functional, architectural and purposeless, Kirkeby’s brick sculptures have become an iconic symbol of Danish modern art. This is the second volume of a three-volume catalogue raisonné on the brick works, together offering a comprehensive overview of his output from 1966 until his death in 2018. This volume concentrates on Kirkeby’s unrealised brick sculptures, from 1983 to 2017. From smaller installations for exhibitions to private commissions and city planning projects, none of these sculptures were ever realised at their proposed site, and are presented to the public for the first time in this book. Contributions from the likes of Hans Ulrich Obrist and Robert Storr provide further context to these important works.