On Thursday 24 May at 6 pm, the exhibition „Per Kirkeby. Lignum vitae“, presenting etchings, sculptures and photographs by Per Kirkeby, the internationally acclaimed contemporary Danish painter, printmaker, sculptor, filmmaker, writer and stage designer, opens at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius. This exhibition marks Denmark’s 2012 presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The press conference will take place on Thursday 24 May at 11 am. The speakers will be: H.E. Jørgen Molde, ambassador of Denmark to Lithuania, Ms Lolita Jablonskienė, chief curator of the National Gallery of Art, Mr Jacob Thage, director of the Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Ms Teresa Østergaard Pedersen and Ms Milda Žvirblytė, the exhibition curators, and Ms Jūratė Nedzinskienė, head of the Private Banking Division of Danske bankas, the patron of the exhibition.

On Thursday 24 May at 6 pm, the exhibition „Per Kirkeby. Lignum vitae“ presenting prints, sculptures and photographs by Per Kirkeby (b. 1938), the internationally famous contemporary Danish painter, printmaker, sculptor, filmmaker, writer and stage designer, opens at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius. The artist will attend the opening ceremony.

This exhibition, curated specially for the National Gallery of Art, consists of Kirkeby’s etchings from the unique collection held by the Museum Jorn, Silkeborg (Denmark), bronze sculptures from the Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Copenhagen, and archival material from ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum. Altogether, there will be 59 black and white and colour prints, two bronze sculptures and 80 Polaroid photographs.

Kirkeby’s expressive paintings and his collaboration with the film director Lars von Trier on the visual identity of his films are world famous. A major retrospective of Kirkeby’s work was held at Tate Modern in 2009, and this year at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

The exhibition „Per Kirkeby. Lignum vitae“ at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius aims to show the process of the artist’s creative work: his interest in how structures express themselves through the systematic repetition of a motif, and transformations of it. The show focuses on the motifs of the tree and the tree stump. The tree manifests itself in various forms in the etchings and sculptures, and secretly makes its way into other structural elements, eventually displacing them. The artist’s interest in structure and his idiosyncratic style of creative thinking have been influenced by some important factors. While he was studying geology at the University of Copenhagen from 1957 to 1964, he also attended the alternative Experimental Art School. At the time, he joined several expeditions to Greenland, the landscapes of which left an enormous impression on him.

An illustrated catalogue of the exhibition is published in Lithuanian and English. The exhibition will be accompanied by a special programme of films and lectures on Per Kirkeby’s work, and its links with contemporary Lithuanian painting.

The exhibition takes place at National Gallery of Art (Konstitucijos ave 22, Vilnius)

For more information, please call (370 5) 212 29 97