When is man free? This is one of the recurring questions for the painter Peter Ravn, who presents his third solo exhibition at KANT.
As in Peter Ravn's earlier works, the man is the center of focus, but this time he has broken out of his abstract space. In several of the paintings, the men have sought out the wilderness of the forests and are apparently on their way away from the civilizational state that their suits represent.
Peter Ravn calls his new exhibition "The Free Movement" with a mischievous reference to the principle of free movement of workers in the EU and free movement as a treaty enshrined by law. When Ravn takes the technocratic concept of face value linguistically, the term takes on a new meaning and initiates a study of freedom and movement as existential or purely bodily quantities. The awareness that there is also less free movement runs as an undercurrent through the images of the men and their surroundings.
Concurrent with the exhibition, a monograph will be released by the esteemed Danish publisher Aftryk. With over 200 pages the book is a curated review of Peter Ravn's pictorial work over the past 10 years. In the essay "The Topography of Longing - About the Disciplined Man and the Longing for Freedom in Peter Ravn's Pictures", art historian Merete Sanderhoff writes that Ravn's motives often deal with the tension between the disciplined man who can be part of society's structures and the underlying longing for another form of freedom or authority. The book also includes texts by the film director and author Jørgen Leth and cultural writer, critique and author Camilla Stockmann.
Peter Ravn (b. 1955) has in recent years had solo exhibitions at the exhibition venues Munkeruphus and Politikens Kunsthal and participated in group exhibitions including the exhibition "JAHRESAUSGABEN", Munich Kunsthalle, Germany.
He has been represented by KANT since 2017.
