ABOUT KELD MOSEHOLM
When Keld Moseholm turned 80 in 2016, Faaborg Museum marked this with the exhibition "Livsværker". The museum's director, Gertrud Hvidberg Hansen, contributed to the catalogue with a description of Keld Moseholm's garden and studio – beautifully located close to the South Funen archipelago – and wrote, among other things: "It's all an overwhelming experience and a beautiful sight, and you ask yourself whether it is really true that the many works are created by just a single artist. But they are ! Here an impressive life's work by an unusually productive sculptor which constitutes an important chapter in contemporary Danish sculpture, unfolds.
You don't have to be with Keld Moseholm very long to understand that one person has created all that art: He is always working. He thinks, he draws, he models – and around him swarm naturalistic children and women, little plump men who throw themselves into the most heartbreaking situations that can never go well ... or can they? Moseholm does not reveal how the story ends .. we are allowed to hope for the best. And if you know your Bible stories, it often makes everything easier...
Gertrud Hvidberg Hansen describes his imagery as contemporary and rounded out by 20th century art and aesthetics, but the stories and moral values underlying the works are timeless and universal and extend beyond the artist's own time and space.
Watch the video about the exhibition "Works of Life" by Sven Storm and Jytte Reimer for Faaborg Museum 2016
Lust for power, inflated self-images and evil
"Keld Moseholm began his career with a series of vivid and poetic realistic sculptures and portrait busts, especially of women and children. He then devoted himself to the production of "the little plump men" and thereby changed the character of his art in three respects: It becomes humorous and ironic. It becomes narrative, yes, Moseholm is probably the most epic sculptor at the moment, because most of his sculptures depict situations that are part of and presuppose a narrative process. And finally, his sculptures become representations of our desire for power, inflated self-images and malice towards others.(...) His sculptures often represent a fragile magic that is hard to believe in, but which nevertheless affects the viewer"
From the book Literature and Intersubjectivity v. professor, mag. art. Jørgen Dines Johansen, University of Southern Denmark, 2009
He drew on the wall in the barn - and on the
silage container
Keld Moseholm is from Funen, born on a farm near Nørre Lyndelse. He has always drawn and talks about how he drew on the wall in his parents' barn and how he drew with tar on the silage container before it was completely tarred over. Croquis – quick drawing of naked people – entered his world when his drawing teacher, invited him to draw in a class she was teaching, whilst he was in the military. Later it was the painter Kaj Kylborg at the Funen Art Academy, who became his eye-opener in terms of seeing (1958 to 1962). From Funen he went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and Professor Gottfred Eickhoff (1965 to 1970), and to the School of Art Education, Charlottenborg (1968-70).
Keld Moseholm later became a teacher himself and worked at the Funen Art Academy 1974-75, Nyborg Gymnasium 1970-72 and Sct. Knud's Gymnasium in Odense 1972-85. From 1986 to 1990 he was a part-time teacher at the Design School, Kolding, and in 2009 he led a Master Class at the Tom Bass Sculpture School, Sydney, Australia.
He is represented in Danish and foreign museums and in many private collections.
Watch Niels Moseholm's film about Keld Moseholm's exhibition at Faaborg Museum 2016
Moseholm's first work showed an obvious talent for modelling and for the poetic representation of the human body. In this way, Moseholm slid into a fine tradition. Created and developed by Mogens Bøggild, Gottfred Eickhoff, Kai Nielsen, Gerhard Henning, Astrid Noack and Knud Nellemose among others.
Ole Lindboe in "Keld Moseholm's world" from 2004