Renowned Danish architect and photographer Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen has created his first Monograph, The Reinvention of Forms. A captivating curation, the cinematic compositions in black and white feature fragmenting bodies, architecture and nature, centred around a recurring motif of spherical shapes. To mark the launch, in an exclusive collaboration with ALIUM, a series of limited edition artworks are currently on display at the art gallery in Copenhagen. The exhibition features a carefully selected array of photographs from the book, sold exclusively through the gallery.
The striking collection demonstrates how Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen reinvents the forms around him as luminous images, creating intimate and enigmatic juxtapositions that invite the viewer to look again and imagine what lies beyond the frame. As a trained architect, Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen brings to life his understanding of tactility, minimalism and detail by anchoring his still life series around a recurring motif of spherical shapes and through rendering each image in exquisite black and white tonalities. Alongside the mesmerising aesthetics of the photographic work, The Reinvention of Forms also includes interpretations of Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen’s practice from his close friends and collaborators, including an introduction by the seminal Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa and a short fictional story by prize-winning Danish author Thomas Rydahl.
Having long admired the work of Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen, I love seeing his body of work celebrated in this way. I find the artworks intriguing and sensory, each one unique yet connected by a common thread, as beautifully described below...
Nature’s imperfection is a humble reminder of old and new: of purity and impermanence. Its inherent sense of harmony is something to celebrate and be guided by. Our body measures our surroundings; it’s spatial properties, materiality, scale, distance. From our eyes to our skin and muscles, we perceive and understand our surroundings on a multi-sensory level. Without being fully aware of it, our vision projects our body and touch onto buildings, into spaces and surrounding nature; it touches distant surfaces, textures, edges, and our sense of touch tells us how to perceive these. Spaces are living voids defined by additions to space and deductions — the unseen matter and shapeless absence surrounding defined objects.
Images 1-8: Photography by Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen
Images 9-13: Styling by Charlotte Skytte Daugbjerg / Photography by Sofie Staunsager
Images courtesy of ALIUM