Everything that is not

September 28 2024 – February 23 2025 

Everything that is not presents brand new works by Mathias Malling Mortensen, with direct inspiration from Esbjerg Art Museum’s collection of works by Richard Mortensen.

Our museum is home to one the biggest collections of works by Richard Mortensen. This great modernist is not only one of Mathias Malling Mortensen´s chief inspirations – it so happens that Richard Mortensen is his grandfather. He grew up surrounded by his grandfather’s works, although the two have never met. Thus, he got to know his grandfather solely through his pictorial language.

Their visual family ties are obvious, and both artists display how formal and poetic investigations go hand in hand. In this way, the project follows two leads, interconnected and contingent on each other: a private lead, and a more general one, through which family history and art history are merged.

This exhibition not only expands the praxis of Mathias Malling Mortensen; the museum collection and Richard Mortensen’s works also grow through the gaze cast on them by the young artist.