Ib Geertsen - Mobiler

The exhibition IB GEERTSEN - MOBILES was created in collaboration with Ib Geertsen as a celebration of the artist's 90th birthday the same year.

The exhibition included 45 floating sculptures; the so-called mobiles and a single painting. Ib Geertsen worked with mobiles for more than 50 years - the first ones were born in the darkness of the post-war period, and with their happy colours and fascinating shapes, they ignited a little hope in the Danish art institution. The asymmetrical sculptures are in complete equilibrium as they revolve around themselves in delicate patterns of movement, creating an almost hypnotic effect in the encounter with the audience.

With the exception of a few of the mobiles represented at ARoS, all the works in the exhibition were taken from the artist's private home in Valby. Here, the mobiles have adorned Ib Geertsen's garden over the years. Part of the exhibition concept was therefore that the mobiles, due to wind and weather, were marked by the ravages of time and pointed back to the years of Danish modernism.

Ib Geertsen was a self-taught artist and an honorary member of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1985, he received a lifelong grant from the Danish Arts Foundation. Ib Geertsen belonged to the group of so-called concrete artists who, in the mid-20th century, stripped their artworks down to a minimum, leaving only the abstract form. Like his fellow artists, including Robert Jacobsen and Richard Mortensen, Ib Geertsen orbited the fabled Galerie Denise René in Paris, which was the centre of modernist art.

In 1947, Ib Geertsen, together with Albert Mertz and Richard Winter, among others, founded the artist organisation LINIEN II, which later became synonymous with the Danish concrete art scene: a young alternative for experiments with abstract art.

In the early years, Ib Geertsen was preoccupied with painting, but the desire to make the form of the image three-dimensional and concrete was expressed in 1949 with the artist's first mobile. The line emerged from painting to become Ib Geertsen's primary occupation and personal characteristic; a work the artist further developed and perfected to the end.

IB GEERTSEN - MOBILES was an unconventional approach, as the exhibition setting was not designed as a usual gallery, but as a park where you walked along winding paths through a forest of both freely hanging and standing mobiles. The reference went back to Ib Geertsen's younger days, when he was trained as a landscaper in Aarhus and as such worked in Vennelystparken in Aarhus - the very place where one of his granite sculptures is set up.

The happy colours, powerful shapes and energetic expression of the mobiles reveal Ib Geertsen's social purpose as an essential part of his artistic practice. Art should enrich people and influence people in a positive direction. The interplay between the form, colour and balance of the works should create a calming effect on the viewer in complete harmony. Ib Geertsen is responsible for a number of decorative projects in public spaces: in schools, hospitals, house fronts, universities and even in a pedestrian tunnel, the artist has brought the constructive design language to the attention of Danes.

In his years of work with balance, colour compositions, lines and flat structures, Ib Geertsen has created a new sculptural and formal language that has inspired a number of contemporary artists, including Olafur Eliasson, John Kørner and Kasper Bonnén. At his advanced age, the artist is making his international breakthrough and has recently opened an exhibition in London at Rocket Gallery. In addition, several of Ib Geertsen's works have recently been acquired by the New Carlsberg Foundation and are being donated to institutions around Denmark.