Gold and Magic @ ARKEN Museum of Modern Art

Gold and Magic 

ARKEN Museum of Modern Art,  Ishøj 

Through 8 August 2021 

SYLVIE FLEURY 

Serie ELA 75K (Won't Smudge Off), 2000

© Sylvie Fleury. Photo David Stjernholm

THOMAS J. PRICE 

Untitled (Icon 1), 2017

Courtesy the artist

ARKEN Museum of Modern Art presents the special exhibition Gold and Magic in which golden treasures from The National Museum of Denmark enter into dialogue with works by some of the greatest contemporary artists. The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through many millennia to explore the power of gold and magic.

Gold has fascinated humankind since ancient times. We express ourselves through gold, and the way of using gold mirrors who we are: from the sacrificial offerings of antiquity and the golden altars of the Middle Ages to contemporary art, which uses gold as a vehicle for pointing out the connection between value and identity. In this spring’s major special exhibition, a range of historical artefacts and precious national treasures from the National Museum of Denmark is exhibited at ARKEN, creating an exciting encounter between cultural history and art. A meeting that offers new perspectives on our thousand-year history with gold.

Golden traces in contemporary art

All over the world, artists are currently turning to gold as a means of expression. They use it to tell stories about humanity and our society – and to question issues such as nationalism and conspicuous consumption. In Gold and Magic, international artists like Damien Hirst, Sylvie Fleury, Lorna Simpson, Thomas J. Price, Bill Viola and Ugo Rondinone show how wealth, identity and the exercise of power are closely interwoven, using gold to highlight our eternal pursuit of happiness and beauty. Some artists are particularly preoccupied with the magic and religious aspects of gold, while others use the precious material to address the global colonial history so inextricably linked with gold. By entering into a dialogue with contemporary art at ARKEN, these historical objects take on new significance and a new identity.

UGO RONDINONE

the sun at 12 am, 2019 

Studio Rondinone 

Photo  Courtesy Studio Rondinone and kamel mennour, Paris - London

LORNA SIMPSON 

Momentum, 2011 

© Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

AI WEIWEI

Circle of Animals - Zodiac Heads (detail), 2010 

ARKEN Museum of Modern Art

Long term loan from the Frahm Collection 

Photo Torben Petersen

Across continents

Gold and Magic takes visitors on a tour around the world. There are golden objects from Colombia, Thailand and Japan, from Danish kings and ordinary Danes. The National Museum of Denmark’s collection demonstrates how gold has travelled with people across continents ever since antiquity – as well as how riches often accumulate in very few hands and in national treasuries. Gold and Magic is the result of an innovative collaboration with the National Museum of Denmark.

The special exhibition presents works by El Anatsui, James Lee Byars, Chris Burden, Eva Steen Christensen, Zhang Ding, Sylvie Fleury, Subodh Gupta, Louis Henderson, Damien Hirst, Alicja Kwade, Runo Lagomarsino, Mercedes Lara, Klara Lilja, Grayson Perry, Thomas J. Price, Ugo Rondinone, Lorna Simpson, Alexander Tovborg, Bill Viola and Ai Weiwei.

ARKEN MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Skovvej 100, 2635 Ishøj

www.arken.dk

Animals in Art @ Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishoj

Animals in Art 
ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj
March 21 – August 9, 2020 UPCOMING: Arken following the recommendations from the Danish authorities regarding the Coronavirus. The museum is therefore closed until further notice.

DANIEL FIRMAN

Nasutamanus, 2012 

Courtesy the artist & Perrotin

Camels and kittens, elephants and rats, feathered creatures and cute pets. ARKEN invites visitors to enter the animal kingdom of art, a realm filled with beautiful, strange and incredible creatures. The exhibition Animals in Art presents works by thirty-four international artists who explore our relationship with animals – and do so with humour, wit and bite.

In recent years, the relationship between humans and animals is widely explored in contemporary art. The exhibition Animals in Art delves into various aspects of this huge field, which includes critical takes on human manipulation of animals as well as cheerful celebrations of animals as wonderful creatures.

LISA STROMBECK

Uniform I, 2008-9

Photo (c) Lisa Strömbeck

Animals in Art explores how we humans use, look at, talk about and anthropomorphise animals. We are regularly seduced by adorable animals on the shelves of toy stores and on the internet; we love our pets and look for the human in them – or for the animal in ourselves. Animals are everywhere in our fables, adventures and mythologies, where we attribute human language and behaviour to them. We are fascinated by wild animals when visiting them at the zoo or in museums, and we tamper with the natural development of species, with the environment and with biodiversity when we produce animals industrially and fiddle with DNA, the building blocks of life. The exhibition offers many different takes on how we see and understand ourselves through other animal species. For example, it explores ‘cuteness’ as a pervasive phenomenon in our consumer and entertainment culture, influencing how we put animals into categories and assess their value.

WILLIAM WEGMAN

Looking Right, 2015 

Photo (c) William Wegman

CANDIDA HOFER

Zoologischer Garten Paris II 1997 

Photo (c) Candida Höfer

Featuring sculpture, installation, paintings, video and photography by thirty-four international artists, Animals in Art forms a sensuous, thought-provoking and engaging menagerie. For example, you can come face to face with a life-sized floating elephant, watch YouTube cats playing atonal piano pieces by Arnold Schönberg and take a fresh look at the artificial environments created by zoos.

KOHEI NAWA

PixCell-Deer #44, 2016 

Photo: Omer Tiroche Gallery

DAVID SHRIGLEY

Untitled (Lay An Egg), 2019  

Courtesy the artist and Galleri Nicolai Wallner

Inside ARKEN’s 150-metre long exhibition space known as the Art Axis, the museum presents fifteen feathered polar bears created by Italian-born artist Paola Pivi. For this presentation, called We are the Alaskan tourists, Paola Pivi has replaced the polar bears’ familiar thick, white fur with light, brightly coloured summery feathers, directing our thoughts away from the harsh climate of Alaska towards southern skies and the carnivals of Brazil. The polar bear is known as The King of the Arctic; a powerful and majestic beast. Today, however, the polar bear has also become a symbol of a dystopian future. It leads an uncertain existence in territories now threatened by climate change. Perhaps this flock of tourists have sought refuge at ARKEN. Adapting to the current climate of our planet, they have replaced their warm fur with frothy feathers.

PAOLA PIVI

It’s not fair, 2013 

Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli 

Courtesy the artist & Perrotin

PETER HOLST HENCKEL

World of Butterflies, 1992-2002 (detail)

Courtesy the artist

The exhibition Animals in Art presents works by Cory Arcangel, John Baldessari, Richard Barnes, Pascal Bernier, Sophie Calle, Mircea Cantor, Maurizio Cattelan, Mark Dion, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Martin Eder, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Annika Eriksson, Daniel Firman, Laura Ford, Douglas Gordon, Damien Hirst, Peter Holst Henckel, Camille Henrot, Candida Höfer, Carsten Höller, Bharti Kher, Paul McCarthy, Kohei Nawa, Rivane Neuenschwander & Sérgio Neuenschwander, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Patricia Piccinini, Paola Pivi, David Shrigley, Lisa Strömbeck and William Wegman.

ARKEN MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Skovvej 100, 2635 Ishøj
arken.dk

Director’s Choice - Exhibition at Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishoj, Denmark

Director's Choice

ARKEN - Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj

Through August 22, 2010

 

  SARAH MORRIS, 1972 [Rings], 2006. Courtesy White Cube, London

Essl Museum is giving 10 international museum directors 200.000 euros each with the invitation to spend it all on contemporary art. Celebrating the tenth anniversary of the respected Austrian private collection, Essl’s founders wish to share their enthusiasm for art by giving the selected museum directors a free hand to buy exactly the art they need to fill gaps in the museums’ collections.

DIRECTOR’S CHOICE presents a unique survey of the museum directors’ favorites and a glimpse into how and why they make their choices.

Stars like Pipilotti Rist, Annette Messager, Liam Gillick and Sarah Morris mingle with young emerging artists from Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and India. Director's Choice is a role call of international contemporary art in all its diverse ramifications. The exhibition opens our eyes to the vast field of contemporary art that museum directors navigate in when selecting the art that is worth preserving for posterity.

   ANNETTE MESSAGER, Inflated, deflated, 2005-2006
   Photo MARCUS J. LEIK - Courtesy Arken Museum, Ishøj

There is a rationale behind each museum director’s choice of works. Some pick a single work by a big star. Others choose artists according to a certain theme and then interrelate the works. Yet others pick works they have long desired for their museum but were not previously in a position to acquire. The directors’ choices reflect personal preferences as well as museum acquisition policies, tendencies of the times and the value of the works.

Director of ARKEN Christian Gether selected works by Anselm Reyle, Jesper Just and Hans Hamid Rasmussen. Rasmussen, who is new to the museum’s collection, recently received the ARKEN Travel Grant, while the internationally acclaimed Anselm Reyle and Jesper Just are already represented in the collection. The choice of works sends the message that Christian Gether has faith in the current and future relevance of these three artists.

   JESPER JUST, A Voyage in Dwelling, still, 2008.
   Copyright Jesper Just - Courtesy Arken Museum, Ishøj


   JESPER JUST, A Voyage in Dwelling, still, 2008.
   Copyright Jesper Just - Courtesy Arken Museum, Ishøj


   JESPER JUST, A Voyage in Dwelling, still, 2008.
   Copyright Jesper Just - Courtesy Arken Museum, Ishøj

In its simple concept, Director's Choice clarifies a museum’s prime task: collecting for posterity. How do museums select works for their collections? What do museums orient themselves towards? What does it mean to build a collection? What is the role of museums in today’s society?

These questions are deeply rooted in the museums’ practice, even though it may not be evident to the museumgoer. Director's Choice shines a light on the art that is acquired and why.

The works by these 32 participating artists all are examples of art that makes it through the needle’s eye and into museum collections. Director's Choice includes a large selection of new sculpture: from a flowering bell with a bomb at its core, referring to the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, to inflatable human organs that are punctured and re-inflated in a continuous loop. There is a strong focus on painting, too, from pure abstraction to new interpretations of traditional Indian painting. Finally, the directors have acquired a number of video works, ranging from documentary investigation of nationalism in Zagreb to Jesper Just’s surreal trilogy about a woman’s sexuality and the poetic experience of Pipilotti Rist's Lavish and embracing installation, A Statue of Liberty for Tökyö.

   PIPILOTTI RIST
   A Statue of Liberty for Tökyö, 2008-2009.
   Copyright Pipilotti Rist
   Courtesy Arken Museum, Ishøj

   PIPILOTTI RIST
   A Statue of Liberty for Tökyö, 2008-2009.
   Copyright Pipilotti Rist
   Courtesy Arken Museum, Ishøj

32 participating artists

Lovro Artukovic (Croatia), Micol Assaël (Italy), Miriam Bäckström (Sweden), Stephan Balkenhol (Germany), Martin Barré (France), Milivoj Bijelic (Croatia), Thea Djordjadze (Georgia), Simon English (UK), Jan Fabre (Belgium), Liam Gillick (UK), Group ABS (Croatia), Ana Husman (Croatia), Manisha Jha (India), Jesper Just (Denmark), Suhasini Kejriwal (India), Raoul de Keyser (Belgium), Alem Korkut (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Eliseo Mattiacci (Italy), Annette Messager (France), Sarah Morris (UK), Muntean/Rosenblum (Austria/Israel), Tal R (Denmark), Hans Hamid Rasmussen (Algeria), Anselm Reyle (Germany), Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland), Arcangelo Sassolino (Italy), Nunzio di Stefano (Italy), Viren Tanwar (India), Patrick Tuttofuoco (Italy), Shiv Verma (India), Chen Zhen (China), Heimo Zobernig (Austria).

11 participating museums

ARKEN Museum for Contemporary Art, Ishøj, Denmark; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; MART Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy; MdM Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria; MOT Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; MS Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, Poland; MSU Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia; Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria; Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany; Tate Liverpool, UK.

ARKEN - Museum of Modern Art
Skovvej 100, 2635 Ishøj
www.arken.dk

DIRECTOR'S CHOICE June 19 - August 22, 2010

Katharina Grosse Exhibition at Arken Museum, Denmark

Utopia: Katharina Grosse  
Hello Little Butterfly, I Love You What’s Your Name
ARKEN - Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj
Through 7 November 2010

 

KATHARINA GROSSE, Hello Little Butterfly I Love You What's Your Name 
Installation photo - Courtesy of ARKEN Museum, Ishøj

Copenhagen. 200 m3 of earth, several hundred litres of spray paint and two giant ellipses have changed ARKEN Museum of Modern Art’s 150 m long Art Axis beyond recognition. In KATHARINA GROSSE’ UTOPIA exhibition Hello Little Butterfly, I Love You What’s Your Name the mounds of earth hug the walls, several metres high, the ellipses stand like huge gates wedged between floor and ceiling, and the paint lies like colourful clouds everywhere. Going into the large gallery is like walking into a painting. This is the first time that the room is changed so significantly.

Since the late 1990s, the spray gun has been Katharina Grosse’s preferred tool. With that in her hand, she explodes painting’s boundaries. Vibrant clouds of paint float into the room – onto walls and floors, over sculptures, everyday objects and enormous mounds of earth. Grosse insists on art’s ability to transcend boundaries and expand our experience of the surroundings. Her installation at ARKEN builds a new universe in the room. A giant mural moves from the wall, onto the floor and over a huge mound of earth and the jagged, rocklike sculptures scattered around the room. In the middle of the paint, “missing paintings” open up like empty holes. The vibrant colours create atmospheric effects and illusions of new rooms which open in the room.

KATHARINA GROSSE, Hello Little Butterfly I Love You What's Your Name Installation photo - Courtesy of ARKEN Museum, Ishøj

The play with transformation is anticipated in the title she has chosen for her installation at ARKEN: Hello Little Butterfly, I Love You What’s Your Name – a poetic phrase that juxtaposes the raw concrete of the monumental room, and that points to the kernel of the utopian endeavour – the possibility of change. The Grosse exhibition is the second of ARKEN’s three-year UTOPIA exhibition series. Her work concerns the utopia as a non-place. A better, as yet non-existent place which only exists in our imagination. In Grosse’s installation we literally step into art’s imaginary universe. Her painting is a place where we may explore and dream on. Art and the aesthetic experience become a concrete model for the utopia’s non-place.

KATHARINA GROSSE, Hello Little Butterfly I Love You What's Your Name
Installation photo - Courtesy of ARKEN Museum, Ishøj

Hello Little Butterfly, I Love You What’s Your Name is a constructive contrast. With her large installation, Katharina Grosse claims the established order does not have to be the way it is. Art can function as a basis for seeing everything differently. She wishes, in her own words, to “confront the viewer with other mental processes than the ones one is conditioned to in one’s everyday life.”

Katharina Grosse has created her installation especially for ARKEN’s Art Axis. Armed with spray guns she is executing a large, site-specific painting which binds together the installation’s many elements, anchoring paintings and sculptures in the concrete, physical room. Grosse never produces the same installation twice. Despite their striking, physical presence, her works are fleeting: Each installation is bound to the concrete room it is developed in, and when the exhibition at ARKEN is over, the installation will disappear.

KATHARINA GROSSE, The Other George (2009) for Amagertorv in Copenhagen
Installation photo - Courtesy of ARKEN Museum, Ishøj

In connection with the UTOPIA project, Katharina Grosse has also developed the sculpture The Other George (2009) for Amagertorv in Copenhagen. 

UTOPIA is supported by the Nordea-foundation.

ARKEN - Museum of Modern Art Skovvej 100, 2635 Ishøj, Denmark
www.arken.dk

UTOPIA: KATHARINA GROSSE
Hello Little Butterfly, I Love You What’s Your Name
12 December 2009 - 7 November 2010