Poul Gernes. I cannot do it alone – want to join in?

Poul Gernes (1925-1996) is one of the truly great Danish artists of the post-war generation, known widely for his large public decorations.

Poul Gernes came from the Constructivist tradition – politically as well as artistically – and at the beginning of the 1960s was a pivotal figure in the Eks-Skole, the group of avant-gardists who with a single blow dominated not only their own time, but the subsequent writing of art history with new methods, new materials and a new conception of the role of art and artists in society. 

Louisiana’s big summer exhibition features a number of Gernes’ major works and focuses on his unusual talent for creating large, impactful images addressed to a new, optimistic age as well as his rigorously experimental practice. In keeping with the reorientation of the 1960s, art had to come down off the easel and not look like ‘works of art’ in the standard sense, and others than the artist could easily execute them. Or in Gernes’ own words - which is also the title of the exhibition - "I cannot do it alone – want to join in?"