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Man Falling: Per Kirkeby


I recently watched a documentary about the Danish painter Per Kirkeby, Man Falling. It's available on Amazon's Prime Video streaming service (for members). It documents his attempts to continue painting after he suffered a fall down a flight of stairs and landed on his head, that left him partially paralysed and with occluded vision.

The film is a moving testament to the difficulties endured both by the patient in these cases, and the people around him. It's also one of the best films I've seen about the process of painting itself. Because even though Kirkeby talks about the fact that he can't really see the left side of anything he's working on, nevertheless with the guidance of assistants he adds marks on those areas of the canvas or paper, too. And the mark-making is just as intricate and beautiful, seemingly, as the work he produced when he was able-bodied.



This suggest to me that for artists who have been working for a long time, particularly great artists, they have an automatic set of gestures and movements that are as it were ingrained in their hands and wrists. They can literally close their eyes and feel confident that the mark they make is as decisive as the one they make with eyes open.

The sad news is that Kirkeby gave up painting altogether, not long after this film was shot in 2014 (and he died in May of 2018, probably as a result of another stroke.) This points to the possibility that the sheer effort of trying to paint while his body was so uncooperative cost him more effort than is revealed even in this film.

For all these reasons, I would highly recommend watching this film if you get the chance.
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