Spring and summer exhibitions in and around Copenhagen

In the exhibition Unseen Kapoor gives a sensory form to what we cannot see with the eyes. For example when water flows into an invisible abyss in Descension (2014), or when he lets us gaze into the dark interior of Memory (2008). Several of the artworks are integrated into the museum's architecture, altering the spaces, and interrupting the usual routes through the building. They open new ways of seeing and experiencing the world, and together they provide a unique insight into Kapoor's artistic production.

The internationally recognized design studio 3XN/GXN stands together with the Danish Architecture Center behind Aware. In Aware, you use your senses to explore what emotional effect architecture has on you.T he installations present some of the fundamental concepts of space: not bricks, concrete or steel, but relations between bodies and space, between spatial atmospheres and human emotions.

In Start Again the Lament, the former underground reservoir, Cisternerne, becomes an instrument echoing recitations of loss with a reverberation of 17 seconds as Taryn Simon broadcasts the lamentations of professional mourners. The public is pulled through Cisternerne by lamentations sonically pushing against its walls in cacophony and silence, and as sound and visiting bodies move through repeating archways, the installation merges darkness and light, absence and presence, singular loss, and its exponential multiplication.

The Length of the Horizon by the internationally renowned artist, Kapwani Kiwanga, explores social mechanisms and power dynamics through large-scale installations of plants, foliage, sand, colour and light. The exhibition stretches across Copenhagen Contemporary's two biggest halls and 1600 m^2 of space.

Kiwanga has a degree in anthropology and comparative religion. Her work explores how objects detached from their original function are given new life in the exhibition space. Handled and displayed, they are distanced from their everyday use and their place in production.

In After Nature – A New Reading of the Glyptotek’s Paintings, the exhibition and the text go hand in hand, when Josefine Klougart uses the prism of art to study the relationship of humans with nature. The author’s texts interacts with the Glyptotek’s landscape paintings showing a picture of the period when industrialisation made an indelible mark on the climate.

Babette - The art of fine dining questions the high consumption and hectic pace of modern life, and takes a closer look at the social experiences and feelings of fellowship, which a shared meal can create across the generational divide.

Six craftsmen- and women, skilled in working with wood, clay, silver, glass, and textiles, will be displaying their individual interpretations of both the exquisite meal and the memorable guests depicted in Karen Blixen’s iconic story Babette’s Feast.

Kunsthal Charlottenborg presents a survey of work by Danish artist Simon Dybbroe Møller, who is a professor at the School of Sculpture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

Dybbroe Møller continuously probes new territories rather than settling into one medium or style. He seamlessly moves between film, photography, found objects, installation, sculpture, performance, writing, curating and teaching. The exhibition, Thick & Thin, will be the most comprehensive presentation of Dybbroe Møller’s practice spanning from mid-2000’s till the present.

Super High End Underground focuses on the meeting between art and fashion in an attempt to uncover some of the aesthetic trends and activist movements that are currently running through different underground environments in Copenhagen. 

The exhibition shows a snapshot of the synergy and composition existing in professional and experimental environments across the visual arts, fashion and design, while examining parts of the mutual inspiration and the dynamic processes that are at play between the fields.

The Danish visual artist Nina Beier has created an extensive work for Gl. Holtegaard’s more than 30,000 square meter baroque garden.

For the work Ø Nina Beier has collected a large number of marble and natural stone slabs, originally carved for kitchens and bathrooms, and placed them in selected areas within Gl. Holtegaard’s baroque garden. Here, the slabs map a global geology and transform the original natural elements into a form of architecture. Over the course of the year, grass will gradually grow through the openings in the stone slabs, creating delimited areas of wild vegetation in clear contrast to the surrounding well-manicured grass and the stones’ polished surfaces.

The exhibition Danish Modern unfolds the story of Danish design from the 1920s to the 1970s, focusing on the creation of some of the most iconic Danish design objects.

The exhibition invites the audience on a design journey from furniture professor Kaare Klint’s ‘Room for a Lady’ to the iconic, groundbreaking German Frankfurt Kitchen – illustrating both differences and similarities between Danish and European modernism – to Verner Panton and Nanna Ditzel’s avant-garde pop designs. In short, a fascinating journey through everything we now know as Danish design icons mixed with unknown designs by well-known designers.

The installation Water Pavilion Ordrupgaard is visible already upon arrival in the foyer. It is built around an oval outline from which numerous jets of water create water walls that alternately rise and fall. The artwork encouraging the audience to playfully engage with art and to start a dialogue with each other.

The Water Pavilion forms a spatial constellation where children and adults can feel connected through play. This also applies to those of the visitors who do not already know each other. The collective experience will give rise to new, spontaneous encounters across generations, just as cultural and linguistic barriers will be broken down in the direct sensory encounter with art. In addition, you become aware of your own as well as other people’s boundaries. The water pavilion is an addition to the park’s other works, all created by high-profile contemporary artists with play and interaction in mind.

Beyond Words: Calligraphy from the World of Islam explores the history of calligraphy and calligraphy as an artform. In the Islamic world, inscriptions appear in far more contexts than in most other cultures. We see calligraphy on everything from parchment and paper to everyday objects and buildings. The calligraphic quotations also range from poetic extracts written by famous poets to passages honouring the rulers or owners of the commissioned works as well as texts about the artists themselves and very often we find Koranic quotations.

The exhibition presents 128 individual works, all of which exemplify the importance and role of calligraphy. The audience is introduced to different types of writing and the different usages from official documents to metal work, ceramics, textiles and architecture.