Ole AAkjær | Influenza
ON VIEW
April 27 - June 11, 2023
RECEPTION
Thursday, April 27, 6-8pm
LOCATION
413 West Broadway
New York, NY
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Ole Aakjær (b. 1962) is an internationally-renowned watercolor and ink artist best known for large-format, highly symbolic works. Ornate ink work comes into play with tattoos often sprawled across the face, neck, shoulders, and upper body. Text and characters, inspired by music, literature, poetry, film, religion, psychology, and cartoons are painstakingly applied with ink. After 25 years as CEO of his own advertising and design agency, Aakjær was burnt out creatively. Reclaiming his childhood fascination and playfulness, he turned to watercolor painting in 2014. International success came quickly, when Aakjær’s first solo exhibition sold out. Many subsequent shows in Montreal, Oslo, Paris, and London, sold out, leading to an international breakthrough and permanent gallery representation in New York, Montreal and Düsseldorf. He has already had two museum exhibitions – at Vejle Kunstmuseum, Denmark in 2021 and at Diocesan Museum, Andria, Italy in 2022. Aakjær has participated in more than 75 solo and group exhibitions since 2014. At the moment the artist lives and works in New York.
Chase Contemporary is very proud to announce an upcoming solo exhibition for renowned Danish artist Ole Aakjaer. The exhibition marks the culmination of Aakjaer’s 6-month residency in New York City. The exhibition will be on view April 27th through June 1st, with an opening reception on Thursday, April 27th, from 6-8pm.
Aakjaer, who has remained the gallery’s most sought after artist for 6 years, came to the United States with his family from Copenhagen in January of 2023, beginning a new body of work in the 22nd floor of his studio on Broadway, overlooking Canal street. Deeply inspired by the bustle of lower Manhattan, Aakajer took to the streets for inspiration. Tearing down and repurposing the wheatpaste posters and advertisements around Tribeca and the Lower East Side, Aakjaer brought elements of contemporary urban life and its gritty, ephemeral nature into his portraits of refined female subjects.
Aakjaer, an astute observer of marketing and the world around him, found inspiration in the strong messaging and temporality of street art. It is the peoples’ art, existing on the fringes of the institutions that dominate the art market. By physically pulling off and reusing detritus from the streets, Ole’s work creates a dialog with unknown artists. To nourish this artistic exchange, stickers designed by the artist will be provided to all gallery visitors to place into the streets of New York, giving back to the streets.
The show’s title alludes not to the virus but rather to the concept of transmission. Exploring the idea that we are an amalgam of the people, ideas, and stimuli with which we surround ourselves, Aakjaer is particularly influenced by the transference of artistic ideas from one artist to future generations of aspiring creators. Traditionally considering his figurative compositions as psychological self-portraits, these new paintings include portraits of the lauded artists (or their work) who have come before him and inspired his work, such as Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Broken Fingaz, the comics of Japanese manga, Yue Minyun, Yoko Ono, Yoshimoto Nara, Leonardo Da Vinci, and others.
The paintings are rich in Aakjaer’s signature vibrant colors, layering of tattooed insignia, decorative motifs, renderings of memento mori (such as his signature rabbit skeleton, the rapid heartbeat of which beats as fast as the heart of the artist,) and annotations. A monumental portrait of Frida Kahlo titled Avant Garde chronicles the life, pain, beauty, struggle, and strength of one of the most important female artists in history. A work titled La Cuisine du Subconscient (The Subconscious Kitchen- You Are What You Eat) depicts a portrait of several women with Salvador Dali overtop a collage of found recipes (a collaboration with the artist’s wife Susan.) The message is clear: we are what we consume.
