Short trip to Skagen (with E + P) to study Viktor IV at gallery TAVI/ Rasmus, Anna Ancher at Skagen Museum , Drachmanns House etc.

Above all I´m found of the works of Viktor IV – American guy – who initially started as a photographer. He was, however, so shocked by the assassination of President Kennedy that he stopped photographing and jumped out as a multi-artist. He bought a ship equipped with a studio in and started to paint on driftwood found in the port of Amsterdam. He called it icons – inspired by the Greek icons – but without religious connotations as Viktor was not a religious interested man. His works more refers to everyday events, they are comments on life – a play between serious and playful. After a successful exhibition in New York some years later, he had money to buy a bigger boat, Berendina Fennegina (Position: 52 ° 22N 04 ° 54E) where he lived with his Danish wife Ina.

Besides the icons Viktor´s log sheets are very well known. Through the years he made thousands of pages – and collected them in several books – simultaneously. The sheets are just visual recordings of everyday thoughts and reactions to what happened around.

In 1972 Ina and Viktor started The Second Quality Construction Company – strange constructions shot up by 3-dimensional collages with text as Unnecessary and Who needs the Pacific.

In the meantime, Viktor began to work on the part of his works where the fascination of the Old Norse Runic alphabet shone through. Colors and words of panels and plates. As this new expression rose, he made fewer and fewer icons and log sheets.

Around 1978 he enthusiastically involved in clocks. He felt it was time to think of time in a new way and developed his own Bulgarian Time, which, among other things expressed by the example he removed or exchanged the numbers on a clock. He then designed his own clocks, going counter clockwise, while others went three times as fast as normal.

In 1986, the end of June, Viktor IV died in a tragic drowning accident in his boat, and the world was certainly a poorer place. However, he has left a trong and inspiring track for us and for posterity.

So thanks to Viktor – and other artists – who managed to transform some dull, grey, rainy summer days to days of inspiration, new ideas and energy! Incredible how sometimes my blue feeling of being stuck can blow away – in minutes – just by approaching new horizons…