Sergej Jensen, Statens Museum for Kunst

Recently Sergej Jensen has worked with figurative subject matter sourced from widely different art historical periods and schools, ranging from the Renaissance, to Romanticism, to early modernism — sometimes all at once.

Like some of Jensen’s earlier monochrome and ‘abstract’ paintings, his figurative paintings reference motifs that are at times recognizable and familiar. In his figurative paintings, the subject matter comes either one-to-one from the original source or elements from historic and photographic motifs are patched together in new constellations and clumsy allegories. With this project-and-paint method of stringing elements together, these paintings are not unlike his stitched up abstract compositions. Some paintings include scenes and buildings in Copenhagen. In a series of black-and-white silkscreens, made in collaboration with Studio Manuel Raeder, Jensen has printed photographs of his own paintings on scaled-down canvases. Here, his own sampled works become the original source material for a kind of second mode of representation.

The publication Sergej Jensen accompanies his exhibition at X-rummet — SMK in Copenhagen (13 October to 30 December, 2016) and compiles all the paintings on display.

Published by Statens Museum for Kunst, 275 × 210 mm, 88 pages with color illustrations.
Available at the bookshop of the SMK.