Until 5 November 2023
Shining mountains and lonely moons present themselves in this exhibition focusing on Else Alfelt’s ability to create presence and healing. The exhibition showcases the artist’s fascinating oevre of internal and external landscapes that encapsulate humanity’s quest for complete immersion and harmony in an often-chaotic world. The exhibition has been created in close cooperation with ARKEN and is the first larger retrospective Alfelt exhibition in 20 years.
Else Alfelt, Den sprængte bro / The Blown-Up Bridge, 1946. Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelt’s Museum. Photo: Ralf L. Søndergaard
Art in a Time of Transition
Else Kirsten Tove Alfelt (1910-1974) lived through times of great societal upheaval. She was a child during the First World War, and her artistic break-through took place during the 1930s and 1940s with their existential crises posed by international politics and the Second World War. The two world wars demanded introspection and reconstruction, and art had to be operational for the individual. Alfelt’s reaction was a universe of light and colour, inviting the viewer into the curved and spiky shapes of nature and the cosmos. Her colourful works are simultaneously peaceful, deep and dynamic.
Alfelt developed her artistic language during a time of transition, and she was engaged in art’s political and revolutionary potential. Her work, however, was often abstract and thus not openly political. Rather her political commitment can be detected in the atmosphere created by her art and in her underlying rejection of art as a means to promote the ego. Alfelt embraced the collective through her process-based series of artworks that offered meditative spaces for the viewers.
Between Heaven and Earth
From the very beginning of her career, Else Alfelt’s imagery is filled with spikes, spirals and circles reminiscent of mountain peaks, crystals and celestial objects, primary among these the Moon. These motifs reflect her sensory and present meetings with nature, both physically and figuratively.
Constantly returning to the image of the Moon above mountains peaks, Alfelt explored the relationship between the more earthy and grounded properties of the mountains and the fleeting nature of the Moon. Her works press upon the viewer the sense of being present outside of time in accordance with her own experiences of the mountains:
“To my mind mountains create a border between reality and the unreal, they are where Heaven and Earth meet […] When I walk in the mountains, I have a fantastical sense of being connected to all times. Everything exists outside of time, and I think that has been the case in the very beginning and will be again at the very end. Nothing is certain in a world of constant change.”
Else Alfelt, Japan, 1967. Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelt’s Museum. Photo: Ralf L. Søndergaard
Else Alfelt at Den Frie 1960. Photo: Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelt’s Museum
Ground-Breaking Artist
Else Alfelt was a ground-breaking figure at the centre of the redefinition of the Danish art scene in the period surrounding the Second World War. Despite being self-taught she had a constant presence in the artistic avantgarde. She broke through internationally and exhibited her art in both the United States of America and France. Along with her spouse Carl-Henning Pedersen she participated in the artists’ groups Linien (1934-39) and Høst (1932-49). She was also a part of the Helhesten (Hell Horse) magazine (1941-44) which began as a protest against the German occupational forces, and she participated in the international CoBrA movement (1948-51).
In an art world consisting primarily of male artists, Alfelt created figure-less tableaus and complex symphonies of basic geometric shapes. She valued atmosphere above rationality in her open-ended works calling for immersion rather than interpretation. Her acute understanding of dynamic shapes and texture is more closely related to artists such as Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) and Sonja Ferlov Mancoba (1911-1984) than her male, Danish contemporaries within the CoBrA movement like Asger Jorn and Henry Heerup. But first and foremost, Else Alfelt’s personal and consistent artistic take carved out a unique position within the avantgarde movements of her day, making her an artist of importance both nationally and internationally.
The exhibition has been generously supported by:
The William Demant Foundation
The Carl-Henning Pedersen Foundation
The TOYOTA FOUNDATION
The Furi Appel and Gunnar Nisker Foundation