Victoria Miro is delighted to present an exhibition of new painting and sculpture by John Kørner.
The exhibition is accompanied by a new essay by Max Andrews.
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John Kørner, Lido Lagoon, 2024–2025 -
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John Kørner, Magical Opal Sea, 2025
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John Kørner, Lido, 2024-2025
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John Kørner, Sky Opens, 2025
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These fugitive spaces are populated by a shifting cast of protagonists. Figures (beachgoers; a diver), fruit (apples; chromatically transient strawberries), footwear (a single adidas Spezial trainer) appear but are themselves caught as if in moments of transformation, rendered with dreamlike distortions of scale or colour, or recast, changing shape, direction or velocity from painting to painting.
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John Kørner, Diving Into the Unknown Venezia, 2024–2025
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While Kørner is celebrated as a colourist, white plays an especially active role, as in Diving Into the Unknown Venezia, in which a figure launches into the starkness of the unpainted world, or in Lido Lagoon, where areas of whitenessstraddle water and air, wrongfooting the viewer, or in Beach Matter, where a void reads as the body and legs of a beachgoer whose putative head bleeds into the colours of a setting sun. Throughout, Kørner alludes to optical or meteorological effects – from solar flare to Instagram filter – further inviting us to question the veracity of his mirage-like imagery.
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John Kørner, Beach Matter, 2025
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In this context, the artist’s storied Problems assume multiple roles. A staple of his practice, Kørner’s Problems – oval or egg-like forms that appear in his paintings and as sculptures – allude not to specific problems per se but to the nature of questions and conundrums as they emerge and are comprehended in the world. They act as metaphors for the human condition and trigger questions about representation, knowledge, or belief – fundamental existential issues or those that allude to specific world events.
‘A painter of problems that take shape in reality finds himself painting in a city literally sinking under the weight of intractable troubles.’
– Max Andrews
In these new paintings, the Problems exist singly – standing like candied megaliths or floating in space – or gather as spume, cloud or chorus. It is hard not to think of these thought bubbles as reflecting a certain anxiety, ecological or otherwise, specific to place. As Max Andrews comments in his accompanying essay, ‘A painter of problems that take shape in reality finds himself painting in a city literally sinking under the weight of intractable troubles.’ -
Problems also appear as sculptures, created in collaboration with the master glassmakers of Murano.
Three problems in total is an especially characterful trio of Campari-coloured forms that seem to lean woozily on each other for support, while the amber forms of Three problems as one are nested like Matryoshka Dolls, one contained by another: ringing with beauty, cut through with unease.
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John Kørner, Venezia, 2024–2025
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About the artist
Portrait photography: Søren Rønholdt -
Related
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John Kørner: Venice Lido Light features in Il Giornale dell’Arte
September 5, 2025Riccardo Deni on Kørner's new paintings and sculptures, on view at Victoria Miro Venice from 13 September–25 October 2025. -
Opening soon at the British Museum – Nordic noir featuring John Kørner and Tal R
September 9, 2025On view 9 October 2025–22 March 2026, the exhibition featurings over 150 works by 100 artists from Edvard Munch to the present day, exploring the macabre, melancholy and sometimes provocative...
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