Christian Lemmerz - Genfærd

The Danish Arts Foundation chose to honour the exhibition Christian Lemmerz Ghosts with the following statement: "Ghosts is one of the most important and striking sculpture exhibitions of the year. The exhibition revolves around death, power, war, religion and popular culture, and Christian Lemmerz has mastered the difficult art of juxtaposing classical sculpture with contemporary visual representations of politics and culture, making it both relevant and artistically interesting."

With the exhibition Ghosts, ARoS presented an artist who has constantly renewed his artistic idiom over the past 25 years. Despite his training as a classical sculptor, Lemmerz has worked with drawing, installation art, video, performance, sculpture and painting over the years. Using materials ranging from margarine to marble, Christian Lemmerz has created a wide range of artworks that both fascinate and repel, touching on or transcending taboos and giving artistic form to the darker sides of human nature.

From his starting point in the experimental art scene of the 1980s, in e.g. Værkstedet Værst, Christian Lemmerz has evolved to become a master of classical art. In recent years, Christian Lemmerz has resumed his work with the classical material, marble, and is thus part of a sculptural tradition with roots directly back to the immortal masters of the Renaissance and neoclassicism. For his efforts, he was honoured in 2009 with the Thorvaldsen Medal, the highest award a Danish sculptor can receive.

For two years, ARoS worked in close collaboration with Christian Lemmerz on the extensive exhibition Ghosts, which had his large, finely crafted marble and bronze sculptures as the central works. With these large sculptures, he masterfully combined unique sculptural work with a range of modern, present and sometimes provocative themes. By placing the works in a simple but effective architecture, ARoS wanted to give visitors the experience of entering Christian Lemmerz's universe - a universe where aesthetics leads you into different parts of the human psyche, the spiritual layers of the mind and its darker, repressed sides.

Christian Lemmerz has participated in numerous exhibitions in Europe, the USA and China, including Brussels, Cologne, Barcelona, The Hague, Paris, Toronto, São Paolo and New York. Today, Lemmerz is represented in several private collections, at The Saatchi Collection in London and at a number of Danish art museums, including the National Gallery of Denmark, Horsens Art Museum and ARoS Aarhus Art Museum. Lemmerz has also created book illustrations and set designs for several opera and theatre productions and has received a number of grants and awards for his artistic work.

In connection with the exhibition, ARoS published the catalogue Christian Lemmerz - Ghosts. The 120-page catalogue is richly illustrated with images of Christian Lemmerz's works. The catalogue includes text contributions by the exhibition's curator, curator Marie Nipper, and an extensive interview with Christian Lemmerz by author Carsten Jensen.