Søren Solkær & Bent Rej

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Søren Solkær & Bent Rej, 6. Sep, 2017 – 17. Sep, 2017

Martin Asbæk Gallery welcomes you to a unique encounter between two of the major rock photographers of our time: Bent Rej and Søren Solkær. Both are well known for their charismatic portraits of musicians: Rej for 60s icons such as The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Who; and Solkær for more contemporary musicians like Björk, Adele, The White Stripes, Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse. Both have had music and its legends as a creative source and in the exhibition the differences and similarities in their visual idioms are blurred and merged in favour of the new aesthetic expression that the photographs create together.

Photography David Stjernholm

In connection with the exhibition Søren Solkær has had the opportunity to dip into Bent Rej’s fascinating portfolio and has made a selection of some of his most interesting portrait photographs. The exhibition is therefore coloured by Solkær’s view of Rej’s work over many years, combined in pairs with Solkær’s own pictures.

This can be experienced specifically in the exhibition where, as you move through the gallery space you can look at Rej’s photographs side by side with Solkær’s, placed and selected against the back¬ground of either theme, composition, colour, mood or subject. The photographs are not just visual echoes of the legendary musicians of the age, they are also peepholes into a sparkling, changeable musi¬cal universe. At the same time, in conjunction, the photographs create a new mode of expres¬sion, a new atmosphere that brings new meaning to each photograph. In this way the exhibition is built up as a reflection of two profiles where past and present meet in a new universe and a new understanding.

Solkær’s photography is characterized by identifying a point of tension between intimacy and edge. His portraits are often regarded as filmic in tone, with a characteristic colour palette. In parallel with Solkær’s intense, filmic portraits, we present Rej’s powerful, partly black-and-white photographs of the music icons of the sixties.

Bent Rej (1940-2016) Danish photographer. Bent Rej was one of the few photographers who were allowed to follow the great pop and rock groups of the charismatic music scene of the sixties at close quarters. Rej is best known for his portraits of the iconic rock band The Rolling Stones. These photographs were featured in and were very important for the photo book The Rolling Stones, which was published in 2014 by the German publisher Taschen.

Søren Solkær (b. 1969) has a BA in Nordic literature from Aarhus University and a BA in Photography from FAMU, the Photo & Film Academy in Prague. Since his graduation in 1995 Solkær has exhibited at innumerable exhibition venues in Denmark and abroad, including Brandts Klædefabrik, Fotografisk Center, Trapholt Museum, Kistefos Museum in Norway and Art Equity in Sydney, just to mention a few. He has published four art photo books over the past ten years.