How can we be human in a world where hope and courage are constantly challenged by cruelty and despair? What do we do while children are robbed of their lives in war? And how do we part with this world, standing between love and the abyss?
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For six decades Ursula Reuter Christiansen has been one of the most important living artists in Denmark. She stands late in her career on the cusp of an international breakthrough. In her art, beauty joins hands with the demon, the light with the darkness, and the works are narrative, expressive and poetic. The exhibition  I am Fire and Water, (Jeg er Ild og Vand) is a true power performance, showcasing installations and painting from recent years and brand new works created especially for this exhibition. On a large scale.

In her artistic practice, Ursula Reuter Christiansen transforms her lived life into art that expresses basic human terms and speaks to the political and climatic crises that are unfolding in the world — man stands on a knife edge, where doom and hope go hand in hand. She invites a walk through six rooms that are simultaneously a walk through the facets of life. From the colossal installation Rotten Eggs Against Bombs to the work Washed Out Faces, consisting of countless white pieces of fabric with painted faces in memory of women who throughout history have lived through oppression and rape. The exhibition also presents several new installations, including Es Ist Zu Spaet. In a room full of fog, one walks with the artist on a personal journey through — and perhaps parting with — the world.

Ursula Reuter Christiansen was born in 1943 in Trier, Germany's oldest city. She studied from 1965—69 under Joseph Beuys at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, and then moved to Denmark, where she gained great importance as an artist in the women's movement. She was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg in 1992-97 and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1997.

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Supported by
Statens Kunstfond