Kirsten Ortwed (DK)

Kirsten Ortwed work is characterized by a sort of artistic research exploring what sculpture fundamentally is and can be. She works with a wide range of materials such as the traditional bronze, onyx and ceramics to the far more unconventional ones, e.g. bee’s wax, polyurethane, and aluminium. The combination and relationship between form and material is essential to Ortwed’s artistic practice, just as she examines the relationship between form and space with special attention to process and transformation. Through decades she has been working with the concept of ‘negative form,’ the form around the form, where she makes what is absent from the center the work itself.

Ortwed (b. 1948, DK) is a highly regarded artist who has been active on the international art scene since the 1970s when she first moved from Copenhagen to New York followed by five decades of living and working in Cologne, Germany, and Pietrasanta in Italy. In 1997, Ortwed represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale, the Danish Pavilion. Her work is included in prestigious institutional collections amongst others the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk; DK), Centre Pompidou (Paris; FR), Moderna Museet (Stockholm; SE), KIASMA Museum for Contemporary Art (Helsinki; FI), Nasjonalmuseet - Museum of Contemporary Art (Oslo; NO), Morgan Library & Museum (New York; US), ARKEN, Museum for Contemporary Art (Ishøj; DK), Horsens Kunstmuseum (Horsens; DK), KUNSTEN (Aalborg; DK), and SMK - National Gallery of Denmark (Copenhagen; DK). Ortwed has created a substantial number of public commissioned works and permanent installations.