So Simple

Michael Kvium was one of the young artists who instituted a new departure in Danish painting in the 1980s, and who, among other things, returned to figurative and narrative art. But in contrast to many of his contemporaries, he was never a “wild”, expressive painter. He has always made use of a consciously old-fashioned, academic form of expression. He himself has said that his art is about what it means to be a human being.

We see a theatre stage lit up by a single powerful projector. A new-born child hangs in an umbilical cord from the top edge of the picture. On the floor of the stage below the child there is a skull in the middle of the cone of light. The shape of the skull reflects the soft top of the child’s head. The symbolism of the picture is clear and easily understood: it is about the brief span of time from birth to death.