Erik Peitersen (DK), Multi-artist

Artist Erik Peitersen with his Floating bunker

For the Free BunkerLove Festival 2014 taking place in the Furreby bunkers by Løkken on July 13, artist Erik Peitersen and his Floating bunker will be transformed! Portrayed at Furreby beach for the People’s BunkerLove Festival 2013 by Chris Brock Photography

For BunkerLove Festival 2014 in Furreby by Løkken on July 13, painter and multi-artist Erik Peitersen will create a Floating Bunker Transformation.

The Floating bunker was created for People’s BunkerLove Festival 2013 in Furreby. It was exhibited on the beach until late August, from there it drifted 5 kilometres North to Nr. Lyngby and has been prepared for internal transformation for BunkerLove Festival 2014. Michael Nørlev of bunkerfotos.dk made this video from Erik Peitersen’s release of the Floating bunker on July 21, 2013 at People’s BunkerLove in Furreby. Vera Lynn musically accompanied the pushing of the bunker, which was set to float with help from vestevent.dk and generous volunteers. Cembrit most kindly sponsored the materials.

Erik Peitersen in 2012 set the stage for BunkerLove Association by participating in the pilot project with the work Gold Tooth, a gilded bunker. He is also a spokes person for BunkerLove. He is currently working on his Outdoor Art project and heading North, using nature and spectators as active influences in a dialogue with his canvases. Peitersen brings to BunkerLove his wish to portray the constant change, beauty and brutality, the deconstructive powers’ symbiotic balance with the accidental sublimation and transformation. An attempt to capture the merging of before, now and after in one go. Learn more about Gold Tooth and see portfolio at www.erikpeitersen.dk Erik Peitersen in action at BunkerLove 2012Photos: Janne Fonda & Nanna Thorhauge

Real world Bunker Drama – millions for bunker removals

Erik Peitersen speaking on May 1 - BunkerLove style

Erik Peitersen speaking on May 1 – BunkerLove style

 

5 Danish municipalities have made budgets to remove select WWII-bunkers which due to their decay and tilting under sea represent danger to people swimming in the ocean. A bunker removal is budgeted with app. 20.000 DKK per bunker, and the State (the Coast directorate) pays the rest, up to 100.000 DKK per bunker. With approximately 100 bunkers pointed out, this makes a total of 10 million DKK, app 1,34 million EURO, earmarked to blow up bunkers (in Jyllands-posten on print today or week-old on web).

In comparison, BunkerLove is paying 25.000 DKK (+ 25% VAT) to have Gold Tooth cleansed by Spray-Away at the moment. The bunkers are incredibly difficult to just blow up, they are build only to last, and even highly creative attempts in the past have failed.

Bunker artist and maker of Gold Tooth Erik Peitersen is being interviewed about his view on the bunkers in Kulturen at TV2 News 19.30 this evening and wish to stress the absurdity to the scenario of spending millions to protect potential swimmers unaware of the bunkers’ sometimes invisible presence… He does not believe the budget is a realistic one, yet even if the project is completed, he believes the money could be spend in far better ways, using the bunkers as a cultural mediator.

  • Allow ugliness… In our efforts to secure and make everything look pretty we make our biggest mistakes… Why not allow a bit of danger and ugliness, why so scared to put up a warning sign? Or just remove the metal parts.
  • Creatively transform rather than believe we can destroy the bunkers.
  • Raise awareness of what the bunkers represent – lack of rational thinking, war lead by fear-mongering (and now paying with tax money again). We need holistic solutions and we need to make conscious choices for how we deal with our cultural heirloom – to make a better future with less fear and greater equality.
  • Acknowledge the clash between cultural behaviour and Nature which the bunkers represent, and make the clash a fertile one, by applying rational thinking and interdisciplinarity.
  • It’s okay to spend some money on securing our lovely beaches, but could this be approached in a more meaningful manner, through cross-cultural collaboration in order to build a new wall? A wall to stand on to look further, rather than to divide or hide behind?
  • Suggest collaboration between Teknik- og Miljøudvalget and BunkerLove and others with a complimentary mission, to turn necessity into a cultural and artistic virtue.

From 1988-98 the Danish Nature Agency made a complete report for which bunkers to preserve and which to let loose, and for how to execute such registration and communication work and learn from bunker preservation projects in Norway, Finland, UK and Holland. It seems nothing happened since then… Facts remain: The bunkers are not officially registered and there is no principled position on the bunkers in Denmark, and no principled European position on the Atlantic Wall bunkers. No one wants to take responsibility? No one wants to take ownership?

What else could be done with some bunkers and 10 million DKK?
We love Erik Peitersen!

Gold Tooth on Vimeo

The making and presentation of gilded WWII bunker Gold Tooth (Guldtand) by Erik Peitersen at BunkerLove’s pilot project festival in Furreby by the Danish West coast, July 2012.
Thank you Sadolin!
Material Sponsor: Sadolin – Let’s Colour
Co-painters: Lars Ditlev Johansen, Kaare Bjørn Vad, Marie Bjerg, Christina Roholm Bruun, Janne Fonda, Nikkie Breinholt Dahm, Nanna Thorhauge

Photos: Janne Fonda Graphics: Viola Heyn-Johnsen Production by me and set without rights to Savoy Truffle by the Beatles (wouldn’t mind a tailor-made, legal composition, if you have one, please!).

Rain Rules – Our festival will be dry

When BunkerLove opens at 16 tomorrow, it will be with a freshly painted Gold Tooth by Erik Peitersen. The rain demonstrated its powers this week where Erik and a team of volunteer assistants witnessed how the shine of gold paint can be messed with by a couple of heavy showers. As opposed to the past week, tomorrow should be dry, sunny and windy, and so that’s when we paint. Just in time for the gold to harden, so the gilded bunker can be used as BunkerLovers see fit. Thank you again to Sadolin, for being a great material sponsor.

Gold Tooth by Erik Peitersen - the process

Gold Tooth in the making and rain

 

Gold Tooth to be – Primer first

Transforming a bunker really isn’t all that difficult… at least not with Erik Peitersen in charge… oh… and with a little lot of help from our friends. Here’s stage 1 (yesterday) where a small team of volunteers assist Erik in painting Gold Tooth-to be with primer. Materials are generously sponsored by Sadolin.

Primer on Gold Tooth

Peitersen testing testingPhotos: Janne Fonda

Gold Tooth – Erik Peitersen for BunkerLove

Erik Peitersen on the Gold Tooth to be

We are thrilled and excited to announce that Erik Peitersen will contribute to BunkerLove with a spectacular Gold Tooth. We are completely confident to promise a small miracle in the shape of a gilded bunker in between the rotten teeth of our joint history. In gums of sand it will rise as a subtle comment to the unconsciousness with which we accept symbols of war and irrational stupidity. Erik introduces a new way of landscape painting that changes expression as often as the light, the dark, the tide and the people surrounding it.

Peitersen brings to BunkerLove his wish to portray the constant change, beauty and brutality, the deconstructive powers’ symbiotic balance with the accidental sublimation and transformation. An attempt to capture the merging of before, now and after in one go.

Materials for Gold Tooth is generously sponsored by Sadolin (Let’s Colour), and Erik will introduce it his very own way at Bunkerlove’s first festival, this Sunday July 15. Thank you Sadolin, and THANK YOU Erik – your work is a dream come true for BunkerLove!