Name: Career Woman / Size: 180 x 150 x 5 cm
Exhibited now at the Hotel D'Angleterre, Copenhagen


Career Woman
Just how high should your testosterone level be for you to become successful with the rest of the noble crowd in the meeting room? When blinking with long eyelashes and displaying carefully selected naked skin is not part of the agenda. Which rules do you play by as a career woman when performing in the business top? For many women the task at hand is clear. In order to match male competition, it involves an extremely carefully buttoned shirt, growth of massive chest-hair, as well as an adaptation of a severe sound level and an uncompromising attitude. However, these feminine imitators of male counterparts, unfortunately, often appear brash as well as bitter. Does pursuing a great career really have to involve a mustache and a bite-me-attitude? Career Woman is a tribute to the women who create their own path to success. They put all their strengths as women into play, are far superior to men in for instance empathy and intuition – and they are doing a fantastic job.






Name: It’s not about ”if”. It’s about ”when” / Size: 200 x 200 x 5 cm
Exhibited now at the Hotel D'Angleterre, Copenhagen

Rahbek, Michael Nash and Planet Illogica wish to generate attention to climate refugees

Painting donated to help bringing the consequences of global warming into focus

The award-winning filmmaker Michael Nash tells the stories, few other filmmakers would dare use filmstrip for. Monday, December 14, he presents yet another in Dagmar Movie Theatre, Copenhagen, in collaboration with the creative community Planet Illogica. Climate Refugees is a documentary depicting the consequences of the migration of the millions of people who in the years to come will lose their homes to global warming. Is the security of other nations at risk, when these migrants come to claim their right to the parts of the world, which are still liveable?

Rahbek has donated, in cooperation with The Tonny Sorensen Foundation (Los Angeles), a painting to the event. The artwork questions the general Western attitude that we have the undisputed right to resources on our small planet. It portrays the victims of global warming as passive dolls that are unable to do anything but await the next move in the immense political game they are now an involuntary part of. Their crops, livestock and homes are disappearing steadily in favor of remote gourmet experiences, tumble dryers and diesel cars. What will we do when they knock on our doors and hold us responsible? Are we ready to meet and accommodate the millions of people whose fate we are right now causing?

Rahbek combines the politicized energy of street art with a photorealistic attenuation to volume and detail. His paintings balance painterly expression with careful control, inviting dialogue about the constant tension between freedom and repression that dictates political and personal life. Influenced by a wide spectrum of world affairs – from terror to poverty to religion—Rahbek uses his paintings to honestly react to events that catch his interest. He relies on typography, animated mark making, and cultural imagery to open up a conversation with viewers.


Read more about the movie: http://www.climaterefugees.com/




Justin Hogan (Producer), Tonny Sorensen (TS Foundation & founder of Planet Illogica), Michael Nash (Director), Thomas Bo Larsen & Mads Mikkelsen, Premiere Climate Refugees, Copenhagen 2009. Photo: Pia Tromborg.


About the artwork:

It’s not about ”if”. It’s about ”when”

Comfort and quality of life measured in plastic meet desperation and struggle for survival. Tons of kilowatt extravagance flow steadily towards us through the robotic vacuum cleaner, the microwave and the computer that is constantly connected. What is, furthermore, soon to reach us is the beginning stream of millions of climate refugees from the third world countries who are experiencing the direct impact of our resource-abuse in the name of convenience. People who are right now losing their homes and way of life as a direct consequence of two extra degrees on the temperature scale with accompanying floods, droughts and storms. Their crops, livestock and homes are disappearing steadily in favor of remote gourmet experiences, tumble dryers and diesel cars. What will we do when they knock on our doors and hold us responsible? When they have nowhere else to go? Are we ready to meet and accommodate the millions of people whose fate we are right now causing?

It's not about "if". It's about "when" questions the general Western attitude that we have undisputed right to resources on our small planet. Two people are depicted in the foreground of the picture as frozen figures without direction, personality or will. They are dehumanized and stripped from their right to manage their own affairs and can do nothing but await the next move in the immense political game they are now an involuntary part of. Like millions of other victims of global warming, they have become a file nobody wishes on their table. With the disappearance of their livelihood, they are forced to move to other countries. But who will welcome them? Who will take responsibility when the bill for a life in luxury is to be paid? Barbed wire separates the two from a world of wealth they will probably never know, yet a world which have caused them to loose their foothold in life – a little more day by day.






Name: The Death of Ronald McDonald / Size: 180 x 150 x 5 cm
Artwork not for sale. Sold to private collector.


The Death of Ronald McDonald

96% of all U.S. school children recognise Ronald McDonald. Thus, as an icon, he is second only to Santa Claus. In Denmark, the fast-food chain has not been any less successful in placing the projection of the happy clown on most children’s’ retina. He will quite surely have laughed in their faces several times during their short lives. Offering a warm welcome in a world of flavour, fun and play. However, his smirk masks the poor fact that making his acquaintance may be expensive and regrettable.

“The Death of Ronald McDonald” expresses a wish to repudiate a world ruled by greedy business giants earning their profits on naive curiosity. A question mark must be put against a kind of business that undisputed brands itself on a hospital function, such as " the Ronald McDonald House”, which support seriously ill children. Merely, to later send the same "children" back to the hospital with blood clots and arteriosclerosis following an unknown number of Big Macs. Why does no one see through this ridiculous scheme?

In the picture one sees a desperate Ronald McDonald. He undergoes the fate he has inflicted on so many - slowly he is dying and disappears into the picture. The eyes that used to greedily scout for new "friends" are torn out. The show is at an end - public health should no longer be controlled by greasy publicity activities determined by individual companies based purely on an economic agenda. A colour of relief spreads in the picture. How does the world and not least our children look without Ronald McDonald?






Name: Poverty Sucks / Size: 150 x 152 x 5 cm
Artwork not for sale. Sold to private collector.


Poverty Sucks
An average western washer consumes the same energy per year as three Ethiopians do throughout life. An average Danish family throws out 250 kg edible food annually. These facts give a clear indication of just how spoiled Western people have become in regards to their way of life and the world around them. We are infinitely rich and infinitely ignorant of it. For when it comes to helping the less affluent, we are not equally generous. As long as we can live extravagantly, it seems less important some live on the breadline for the same amount of money others allocate to toilet paper. The egoism era must end. The work "Poverty Sucks" is an attempt to end apathy and encourage thoughtfulness and compassion. A rugged background represents the living environment of a poor boy. A child who is each day forced to begging in order to ensure the survival of his family. The text in the foreground is written in a desperate attempt to plead his case using a terminology Western consumers understand. The sarcastic pink colour on the gold background communicates his message using an ironic "rich"," gangster-rap" style in order to put him at eye level with the viewer. My hope is that it then becomes easier for the viewer to relate to him and respond to his situation.





Name: The Swan vs. Rahbek / Poverty Sucks
Not for sale. Private collection.

It has set the standard for Scandinavian furniture design, since Arne Jacobsen swung his pencil and drew the original organic curves in 1958. It has also generated turnovers that could have fed countless people in the Third World. "The Swan" continues the Rahbek series reflecting the indifference in regards to human lives that has come to characterize western minds. Indifference, which is also on display in many living rooms – among others in form of the Swan. Well crafted, stylish and uninterested in the many deaths occurring worldwide every minute. We prefer to turn the back of our chairs on such unfortunate events - we cannot afford to commit ourselves. Poverty Sucks!


Thanks to Saseline for using my chair in her new video:










Name: Stupid Human Beings / Size: 120 x 150 x 5 cm

Stupid Human Beings
What became of all the unused potential? The strength, goodness and power man carries with him that each day slips through his fingers to be wasted. Suppressed by inner desires such as achievement of power and position, the potential has become a distant acquaintance of human beings. In stead rules the wish to see one’s own will on others’ agenda to the extent that nothing else seem important. Attitudes are directed to fit a norm, whatever the cost. The battle over power takes place in classrooms, conference-rooms and churches, with no intervention of all the good forces all human beings basically possess, but seem to have forgotten long ago. Stupid Human Beings is a call for man to look objectively upon his great positive potential and become attentive to what inner forces obstructs its unfolding. A messenger from another world displays his indignation at the human way of life and destructive behaviour. From his inhuman form, he is able to see what we cannot. And he calls out to the human race to prevent more waste. In one gesture he points at and reaches out to the viewer to encourage self-examination and action. Will we ever see what he sees?





Name: BAM WANTS YOU / Size: 150 x 120 x 5 cm
Represented by Backyard Gallery, Copenhagen
Not for sale. Artwork sold to private collector.


Bam Wants You
It is happening now. I awake to the clamour of a helicopter and go to be bed with a shout of joy. Obama has been elected president. My stay in New York on that colourful election day, 4/11/08, made a deep impression on me. Yet it was a front page from amNew York that served to inspire this work. The strong symbolic impression that Uncle Sam makes on the American personality has been given a whole new expression: That of Obama. It seems calmer and more approachable but no less demanding. Just the opposite. The beholder’s task has become even greater. Obama plays a quite different role on the American patriotic scene. He recruits not to war but to national and global cooperation. And he wants you! His calm, proud demeanour is a wonderful contrast to the martial Uncle Sam and a melting pot of precisely these two personalities also provides a powerful reference to Obama’s will to positively challenge entrenched dynamics. I have attempted to highlight this by focusing on the various noteworthy factors in his political activities up to this point. His versatility and potential to achieve victory are symbolised by the joker. His way of combining a solid grasp of American history with the necessary renewal of political philosophy is underlined by the reference to Lincoln. The staff he holds in the fourth image emphasises his strength and will to lead the people through the wilderness. The picture as a whole is characterised by light colours in order to reflect the optimism surrounding his election as president that day. The rough finish, however, refers to the fact that this is just the start and much work is still left to be done— That it will be exciting to witness the future of Obama and his project.






Name: TWENTY FOUR THOUSAND EVERY DAY / Size: 120 x 150 x 5 cm
Artwork not for sale. Sold to private collector.

TWENTY FOUR THOUSAND EVERY DAY
Our children experience countless deaths each day. Death forms a vital part of the entertainment in video games. After having slaughtered a few hundred or so superheroes, children jollily pursue their day-to-day existences. The utter indifference with which life is treated in the digital western world parallels the lack of awareness of the two hungry children in the background of this painting. In the third world, reality is more serious. More than 24,000 children die of hunger every day. Our own eyes and those of our children pay more attention to the plump little plumber in the foreground. My goal here is to reflect the consciousness that I feel reigns in our western society. As one of our time’s greatest gaming icons, Super Mario symbolises western excess, which we do not ourselves realise to be richness. Colour saturated and safe in his sharply-defined exposure, he pays no heed to the boys’ scratched and scoured reality behind him, a reality that they cannot escape. Many people in the West believe themselves to be poor. But poverty for our children is not a question of hunger or death. It is a question of being able to afford football league or having money for the latest Playstation and a reasonable selection of games to go with it.