Distinguished Danish artist Erik A. Frandsen here shares how the trance-like experience of a 35 days and 1,050-kilometre long walk was transferred into a stunning exhibition of multi-coloured mosaic columns and beautiful watercolour sketches.
The exhibition is based on Frandsen’s 35 days and 1,050 kilometre long walk with his friend – Danish writer Thomas Boberg – from Gran San Bernado in Switzerland to Rome. For Frandsen the very essence of the journey was walking itself and the locations, and the impressive colourful mosaic columns in the exhibition are thus ornamented with place names – some inverted.
“A large part of what it’s all about is finding the holes, where one isn’t obstructed.” During the walk Frandsen experienced a great freedom in doing sketches without having to worry whether they would actually be used for anything: “Having been there is enough.” The fast making of the sketches was a great contrast to the slow pace of creating the mosaics: “I really like those kinds of opposites.”
Erik August Frandsen (b. 1957) is a Danish self-taught artist who works with painting, graphics, drawing, photography, collage, mosaics, ceramics and film. In the 1970s he studied ceramics in Greece, trained as a sculpturer in Italy and went to Paris, France where he worked with graphics. In 1981 Frandsen moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he co-founded the artistic collective “Værkstedet Værst.” He was also part of the “det vilde maleri” (the wild painting) movement during the early 1980s. Frandsen’s art is exhibited in several international venues and in 1992 he was part of documenta in Kassel. In 1996 Frandsen received the Eckersbergs Medal, and in 2010 he was bestowed the Order of the Dannebrog (awarded by the Queen of Denmark). Find out more about him here: http://www.erikafrandsen.dk/
Erik A. Frandsen was interviewed by Kasper Bech Dyg in connection to the exhibition ‘Pilgrimage for an Armchair Explorer’ at Horsens Art Museum in April 2015.
Camera: Mathias Nyholm
Produced and edited by: Kasper Bech Dyg
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2015
Supported by Nordea-fonden
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