Danish photographer Per Morten Abrahamsen has been a frequent contributor of pictures for the advertising, magazine and fashion industries. Abrahamsen's big breakthrough came with his production of portrait photographs of well-known Danes for 'Monthly Magazine Press' and 'The Business Daily Børsen'. Here businessmen/women, politicians and artists were depicted in humorous, imaginative and provocative tableaux which, partly, opposed the prevalent aesthetic norms of the portrait genre and, partly, set new standards for the possibilities of staged photography.
With the new exhibition – CENSUR (Censorship) – in ARoS' West Gallery, Abrahamsen has forsaken the celebrity universe. Everybody in his new series is ordinary and anonymous, but often – as in a great deal of his production – they appear naked or semi-naked. As regards his preference for naked persons, Abrahamsen states that it is related to the idea that the body, with its many marks and lines, is more expressive than the face. He is fascinated by the naked body's sensuality and vulnerability, and by the subsidence of norms that occurs when a person lets their facade down.
Per Morten Abrahamsen: Censur (2008)
Photo courtesy of ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum
CENSUR consists of 26 large photographs showing a number of women and men in an interior, in a city space, or out in nature. All are more or less naked. The photographs are powerfully staged which, not least, underlines the fact that hanging from each person's mouth is a long side of bacon, branded with the word CENSUR. We never see the entire word – only fragments of it. The idea that it is the pig that should be blamed for the person's constipation is because the make-up of this animal is most similar to the make-up of the human being. This specific feature of the work is developed in collaboration with the visual artist Lene Nymann.
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum Web Site
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