Anna Bjerger and Chantal Joffe, The Time Before, Gammel Strand, Copenhagen
A show of two painters at the top of their game. I have known them both for around twenty-five years and watched their practices mature in parallel. Seeing their works sharing rooms in Copenhagen was a total joy. They both have the uncanny ability to paint almost nothing – potted plants, a wristwatch, a sofa – while opening up whole worlds.
Regenerative Fællesskaber (Regenerative Communities), Fabrikken for Kunst og Design, Copenhagen. Curated by Signe Vad.
After a lifetime of fancy dinners during my time as an art dealer, this dinner for eighty people at this studio community felt like a vindication of my move from gallery office and art fair booth back into the studio. I have been to dozens of dinners with performance art as entertainment hosted by art fairs, ambassadors, and banks where the incongruity between the audience, setting, and performance made for excruciatingly uncomfortable viewing. This vegan dinner with talk and honey tasting by Bybi and performances by Al Masson, Maria Nørholm Ramouk, and Karen Nhea Nielsen had an intentionality and genuine sense of fællesskab – the Danish word usually translated as community, but which is closer to fellowship.
Chaïm Soutine, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk
I had only seen the occasional work in a museum collection or book before this authoritative show made in cooperation with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf and Kunstmuseum Bern. Soutine’s work is often compared to that of Francis Bacon. But next to Soutine, the British painter’s line of existentialism looks like academic teen angst. Each of Soutine’s portraits evokes the lived life and individual presence of the sitter. Every painting feels completely singular and definitive. He could make a plate of sardines with a knife and fork feel important. Every centimetre of his surfaces pulse with energy. I was reminded of his continued influence in Frank Auerbach’s paint handling at Francis Outred gallery in London.
David Risley is an artist living in Copenhagen. For twenty years he ran David Risley Gallery, first in London, then in Copenhagen. He has a solo exhibition of new paintings at A Hug From the Artworld, NYC, forthcoming in January 2025.
For this year’s contributions to the Advent Calendar, see here
