Between Matter and Spirit

Margrete Sørensen. Galleri Stalke. Vesterbrogade 15, Copenhagen. Tue-Fri 14-17:30, Sat 12-15. Until April 28.

Margrete Sørensen has, throughout the 70s and 80s as a member of the New Abstraction movement, intensely explored the relationship between space and objects. Her latest exhibition at Galleri Stalke can be viewed both as a total installation of complete purity and as individual works, each of which is complex.

The first room confronts the viewer with two large panels, where simple table-like figures evoke a perspectival space, which is immediately challenged by the materials’ object character and the breakdown of perspective in the plane.

A series of beautiful drawings in blue and yellow, black and white on millimeter paper create the same confrontation of space/surface, precision, and indeterminate references, which deny each other but together form a new space of an almost transcendental character.

The actual “sanctuary” is encountered in the innermost room, where an extremely minimalistic arrangement of seven white square tables casts long shadows in black paint. The installation then, on an even more concrete level, raises doubts about objective reality, but simultaneously creates a new and more metaphysical character in interaction with circular mirrors with central graphite “eyes” of a disturbing size. The light reflections on the walls especially give the viewer the sense of being transported to an adventurous planetary system, where the line between reality and dream is no longer discernible.

Margrete Sørensen masters the interplay between materials, colors, and light to make this in-depth and complex discussion of the concept of reality and the relationship between matter and spirit a particularly present and profoundly moving experience.

Hellen Lassen

Politiken 18.4.1990

Space within Space

Margrete Sørensen: Na’turlig. Stalke Gallery, Vesterbrogade 15, Copenhagen. Open Tuesday-Friday 14:00–17:30, Saturday 12:00–15:00. Until April 28.

Margrete Sørensen creates space in her images. Spaces that relate to space. Art historically, her starting point may well be constructivism, but in Margrete Sørensen's reinterpretation and further development, we are far from the starting point. In the beautiful and understated exhibition at Stalke, the explorative spaces in the images elegantly play on their sense of depth. The spaces invite interpretation and can be difficult to access in terms of objects, but their strongest quality is that they draw the viewer in.

The space is also what Margrete Sørensen relates to in her wall and floor installations. For example, when she sharpens awareness and sensitivity towards the location through the hanging of round forms on the wall. Simple, understated, effective – and yet, the work is titled "Conversation."

Similarly, with a cool, minimalist sculpture, which essentially consists of seven white open boxes in a row. The object is called "Opening" – but the question is whether, unlike Margrete Sørensen's actual images, it does not close off by becoming self-contained.

Torben Weirup

Berlingske Tidende 11.4.1990

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