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Looking Back at Stalke Galleri

STATUS: Sam Jedig celebrates the 15th anniversary of operating Stalke Galleri in Kirke Sonnerup with a global outlook and numerous guests.

SONNERUP: An exhibition featuring over 200 works by half a hundred artists from Denmark and abroad is set to commemorate a significant milestone for gallerist Sam Jedig.

"The exhibition consists of highlights from these 15 years and guests, as recommended by my artists," explains Sam Jedig during a tour of the gallery, which has many rooms on Englerupvej 62 in Kirke Sonnerup.

The gallerist is nearly done arranging the many works into a broad and diverse exhibition showcasing both well-known and lesser-known Danish and international names.

"Some artists have only a single work included, while others have several. It depends on how things fit together," says Sam Jedig.

His core group of artists, including Torben Ebbesen, Margrethe Sørensen, and Thomas Bang, are also part of the new exhibition.

"They, along with a few others, formed the original core when I opened a gallery in Copenhagen," says Sam Jedig.

His first gallery opened on Østerbro in 1982, and after relocating, it remained in Copenhagen until becoming Stalke Gallery in 1987.

Back then, the artists in the gallery were recognized in art circles but later reached a broader audience, particularly through decorative projects.

This applies, for example, to Torben Ebbesen, who has created 36 large decorations for institutions, squares, and similar venues, often facing resistance.

"There was public opposition to the sculpture I created for the square in front of the library in Ringsted, but now the Carlsberg Foundation has decided to restore it," says Torben Ebbesen, clearly pleased.

He had just driven here to make some adjustments to the piece "Tsunami," a sculpture featuring an animal carrying its young.

The conversation turns to the early days in Copenhagen when Sam Jedig hired the young Olafur Eliasson as an assistant.

"It was my wife, Margrethe, who got Olafur into the academy," recalls Torben Ebbesen.

Sam Jedig hosted Olafur Eliasson's first Danish exhibition. Eliasson has since become world-famous and is known for designing the light installation at ARoS Art Museum in Aarhus.

"Olafur Eliasson doesn't have works in this new exhibition because everything has to fit together. Other guest artists have also become megastars, but this exhibition features a mix of well-known and unknown artists," says Sam Jedig.

From the USA alone, he features six artists, including Jeff Hargrave, who began exhibiting at the Bronx Museum in New York in 2015. Now he’s in the same gallery as the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who has contributed a collage of his drawings to this exhibition.

Sam Jedig also showcases entirely local artists, such as Steinunn Helga Sigurðardóttir and Morten Tilitz, who both embrace international collaborations and exhibit in distant places. Steinunn even stands out, having curated an exhibition with Snorri Asmundsson, announcing an event on the final day.