Peter Bonde Please Use The Other Door, Motherfuckers
Painting is Peter Bonde’s primary medium, and the show could very well have been a classic exhibit of paintings. But through the abundance of imagery and media, the paintings rather work as a signifier of painting. At the same time, the exhibition also introduces elements of installation, which intervenes with and disturbs our expectations of the gallery space.
Deconstruction is a central aspect of Bonde’s practice, serving to challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of painting. This is expressed in Bonde’s use of his own photos as well as in the ongoing series of Book Paintings, based on the artist’s own library of art books. In the series, Bonde has photographed and enlarged the book covers and printed them on canvas, then modified and partially painted over them.
Working with painting – or image-making – in this expanded field, somewhere between painting, sculpture, and installation, and often in dialogue with other artists and their works as well as with other contemporary visual products, the works point to painting as a form of interface between different systems. The painting is the connecting point in the cross-media method that Bonde has consistently practiced over the years. It is the painting that drives the work.
Peter Bonde (b. 1958) is a Danish visual artist, living and working in Copenhagen. Educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (1976-1982), later professor at the School of Painting (1996-2005). Recipient of the Eckersberg Medal in 2003 and awarded Statens Kunstfond’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 1999 (with Jason Rhoades). Peter Bonde is represented in numerous Danish and international collections, including Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, ARKEN Museum for Modern Art, Ishøj, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg, Can Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Turkey, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany and Turku Art Museum, Finland.