Authors: Ben Ruhe
Date Submitted: February 28, 2003
Article Type: Journal

Arriving at Curt Asker’s house in the south of France at night, in the dark and rain, a visitor sees a small, white kite flying over the town. “The kite bids you welcome,” says Asker. It is the nicest possible touch.

Later, he says, “I’ll bring the kite down now. It needs to sleep.” More charm.

A Swede, Asker has made a considerable reputation in the world of Western art with his wind sculptures—–kites, objects suspended by kites, indoor creations that hang from the ceiling or are mounted out from the wall and move with wind currents. His economical art is strange, original, profound. It captures the imagination.

Asker early on made kites that suggested the boggling work of the Belgian artist Rene Magritte (boots with toes, painted apple huge enough to fill a room). He made a kite in the shape of a motorcycle and photographed it climbing the edge of a cloud. He made kites in the shape of a dog’s foot pad, had them march down the beach, then climb into the sky—–making a vertical plane upward to infinity. This made the sky look like a horizontal surface, a beach where the dog was running. The whole landscape was unreal, a hallucination, a visual double take.