Louise Nevelson – Sculptor of Shadows

Louise Nevelson has been described as a ‘Furniture Mystic’, an ‘Architect of Shadows’, ‘The Queen of Assemblage’ and ‘Visual Art’s Answer to Karen Blixen’. In the post-war years, on the basis of what she referred to as a life-long love affair with art, she set out to breathe new life into sculpture. The exhibition will present several of Louise Nevelson’s distinctive works: assemblages several metres long, made from salvaged bits of wood painted monochromatically in black, white and gold, and small, rarely-shown collages.

As part of Kunsten’s The Past Retold series, this exhibition will include a broad selection of Nevelson’s works dating from the mid-1950ss to the 1980s. Together, they will provide an in-depth insight into this artist and her powerful wooden sculptures. Her black wooden sculpture in particular and the shadows that play a key role in the artist’s practice, will form a basis for our appreciation of Nevelson’s work. The exhibition will also tell the story of a highly idiosyncratic artistic personality, who dedicated her life to art, making it an active element in her artistic mission.
 

The exhibition will be presented in Kunsten’s Main Gallery. Its enticing light will set the scene for a holistic sensory experience, underpinning the theatrical dimension that is inextricably associated with Nevelson’s art. Light, which was so important to Alvar Aalto in his architecture, will interact uniquely with Louise Nevelson’s massive, physically alluring works.

^{Photo: Louise Nevelson, Moon Garden Scape VI (1969-76). Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg}

^{Foto: Louise Nevelson, portrait. Courtesy Louise Nevelson, portrait. Courtesy Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris. All rights reserved. © 2020 Estate of Louise Nevelson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VISDA}