Sten i Floden

Med afsæt i URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSENS tilhørs forhold til Møn fejre Kunsthal 44 Møen hendes 70 års fødselsdag med en total-installation hvor billedkunstneren gentænker ”Kvinderollen i mit liv”. Udstillingen tager afsæt i en helt ny installation. Her samler URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSEN de kvindeskikkelser der har inspireret hende gennem et halvt århundrede – ”mine incitamenter”.

En ti meter lang leporello, lavet af transparente farvede akryl plader,  – med billeder af kvindelige ikoner som Rosa Luxemburg, Marina Zwetajewa, Amazonedronningen Penthesilea, Artemisia Gentileschi, Edith Södergran, mytologiske såvel som virkelige personer, i procession gennem kunsthallen. Hver sektion i installationen åbner en dør til et nyt rum hvor kunstnerindens ledestjerner gennem årene defilere forbi. Som helgener fra middelalderen har de hver deres attribut med sig – et sværd, en kniv, en bog, en kat, en urne etc. De følgende sektioner åbner rum, til endnu ikke definerede kvindeskikkelser.

Rammen omkring leporelloen er en installation hvor Ursula Reuter Christiansen med udgangspunkt i 8 temakredse ser tilbage på – de tidligere år i Tyskland, til rejsen mod nord, livet med børn på landet, kvinde- og arbejderkampen i 70erne, Grimms eventyr – Rødhætte, Snehvide, mor Hulda etc.….., den Græske myte over Amazonedronningen Penthesilea, til alderdommen og befrielsen.  Hun udvælger, retrospektivt, tegninger, skitser og collager, spor fra et kvindeliv – og ser ind og frem ved at bearbejde, modificerer og forstørrer disse værker – samtidig vises enkelte signifikante ældre malerier.

Sten i Floden er et flow af de kvindelige forbilleder der strømmer igennem URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSENS ”værk”. Bevægelser, hvor hun arbejder ekspressivt med sig selv og sit eget liv som materiale og hvor den private historie og de ikoner som hun kaster ind i sine billeder forvandles til store almene fortællinger om lidenskab, svigt, begær og kærlighed.

“Det drejer sig for mig om at belyse dobbelttydigheden i kvindernes placering i det omgivende samfund – terrorist, offer, martyr?”
Ursula Reuter Christiansen

 

”Som kunstner blev jeg kastet ind i den brydningstid i 70erne, hvor kvinderne bryder ud af de fastlagte roller med store kampe og besvær. Som kvinde var det meget naturligt for mig at gøre denne sag til min egen. Allerede i 1971 lavede jeg filmen Skarpretteren, hvor jeg gennemspillede de fastlagte kvinderoller. Filmen ender med, at jeg lod mig halshugge for at aflive det gamle jeg, for at kunne genopstå som den nye kvinde. Slutcitat fra filmen; “Fat håb det næste store øjeblik i historien tilhører os”. Udstillingen hedder Sten i Floden. Kvinderne er stenene i floden. Her strømmer floden ikke længere roligt, men må danne hvirvler i andre retninger.”    URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSEN

 

URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSEN
Sten i Floden – Steine im Fluss

The exhibition features a newly designed installation. URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSEN has assembled a series of female figures that she has described as “incentives” for her artistic work over the course of more than half a century. A 10-meter long accordion-fold display of transparent acrylic panels presents as sources of inspiration iconic female figures such as the Amazon queen Penthesilea, the painter Artemisia Gentileschi and the poet Else Lasker-Schüler and also encounter contemporary images of women of today. Together they form a procession through the large exhibition hall. Each section offers a glimpse into the artist’s leitmotifs as mirrored in years past. “I am interested in examining the ambiguity of the position of women in their respective societies,victim, terrorist, martyr?”

The exhibition is comprised of eight themes that offer a diverse review and overview ranging, among other things, from the early years in Germany and the motif of the journey northward, to the struggle for women’s and workers’ rights in the 1970s, to moments of “existential experiences such as marriage, depression, loneliness, no more services.”

URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSEN has also selected for this exhibition drawings, sketches and collages that include traces of femininity. These have been freshly adapted, modified and to some extent distorted from their original form. She juxtaposes a selection of her important early paintings with these newer works in dialogue in Kunsthal 44 M�en.   Sten i Floden (Stones in the River) thus emerges as a current of women’s (ideal) images that run through the oeuvre of URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSEN. For this show, the artist works with themes that explicitly relate to herself and her private history: her own life becomes the material. In this way, the works are also transformed into images from the great universal narrative of passion and failure, of desire and love.

URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSEN Born 1943 in Trier, studied art history and German studies in Marburg. From 1965 to 1969 study at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, master class with Joseph Beuys. From 1992 to 1996 professor at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg; from 1997 to 2006 professor of painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Copenhagen.  Participated in the Venice Biennale, Danish Pavilion (together with the FLUXUS-composer Henning Christiansen) in 2001. She lives and works on the island of Møn. Exhibitions (selected): Widow, ME Contemporary Gallery, Copenhagen (2011); Den røde tråd, Randers Kunstmuseum (2008); Lille Pige – Ikke Være Bange for Hekse, Galleri Granlund, (2008); Retrospektiv, Rønnebæksholm (2008); Roter Fluss, Galerie Asbæk (2005); Den Røde Bro, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2002).

KUNSTHAL 44 MØEN Foreningen 44 Møen (Eng.: 44 Møen Association) operates the exhibition space Kunsthal 44 M�en in Askeby on the island of Møn, with Bjørn Nørgaard and the German curator René Block at the helm as artistic directors. Through the efforts of Henning Christiansen and URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSEN, too, Møn has become a meeting place for international artists, including those who were and are close to Fluxus. This is the background that led Bjørn Nørgaard and René Block to decide to continue their longstanding collaboration by founding Foreningen 44 Møen in 2007 and opening the art venue Kunsthal 44Møenen in 2008. In that context, it is a great pleasure for the Kunsthal to now join in celebrating the 70th birthday of URSULA REUTER CHRISTIANSEN.