"And then it is all over"
By Peter Ejlerskov


As an artist it's an almost insurmountable barrier to illustrate a text as this exhibition is structured around if you understand the word illustration as to clarify or explain a text with drawings. Soren Kierkegaard's talk "At a Grave" which was first published in 1845 as part of the "Three talks on Imagined Occasions", contains many layers of meaning, but not a specific theme can be directly translated into a graphic language. In connection with the re-release of at "At a Grave"( publisher Siesta 2014, Claus Juel/Peter Ejlerskov ), where I contributed with graphic works, it was therefore important for me to find a different approach than the illustrative , and instead add a visual layer or a kind of background music to the text. The hope is that the works adds meaning to the text and gives the reader a sense of the text's seriousness and consistency. Kierkegaard's speech will make it clear that death is not something you can reject in uncomfortable resemblance. He talks about death, not only as an end to life, but as a part of life - a consequence of the life you were born into and from the beginning is qualified to. Death is in other words not something you can just forget until it happens, because then you are unprepared for its severity. In particular, I think that Kierkegaard is very precise with the idea that death only affects those left behind, not the dead, because even at the end of life you are to the complete and utterly alive. Therefore, the "deaths arrow" always misses, because when it finally hits , you're probably dead. Death is therefore of importance for the living and one can also say that my work is not about death, but about the symbiosis between life and death - and on how to find himself comfortably between the two poles.
 
Edited version from the exhibition catalogogue.
Soren Kierkegaard »At the grave« was first published in 1845 as part of the »Three talks on Imagined Occasions«. (»Tre Taler ved tænkte Leiligheder«) Graphic works by Peter Ejlerskov. Postscript compiled by Claus Juel. 
 
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