Video
.
Klas Eriksson (SE)
Klas Eriksson lives and works in Stockholm and Berlin. Klas Eriksson works with power and control. A central aspect of his works is mass culture and how it influences our perception of power, authenticity and artistic expression. Eriksson creates an innovative immediacy in his way of working, which is visible visually as well as conceptually. He is greatly inspired my both pop culture and different subcultures.
Klas Eriksson: Mono Colored Atmosphere
Performance
Aug 24, 7:45pm-7:50pm
Ved Stranden (the canal opposite Christiansborg)
Read More
Klas Eriksson: McDonalds Copenhagen
Performance
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 25, 12pm(noon)-2pm
Read more
Klas Eriksson: McDonalds Copenhagen
Performance
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Sep 1, 3pm-5pm
Read More
Hito Steyerl (DE)
On the ocassion of Copenhagen Art Festival Overgaden presents a solo exhibition by the german artist Hito Steyerl. Using video, sculpture and archival material, the work gives form to a dramatic event that took place in 1993 during the war in Bosnia, when a paramilitary unit abducted 20 people from a train. Hito Steyerl has made her mark on the international art scene as one of the sharpest observers and innovators in the documentary genre. In her critical perspective on documentary, the only objective truth appears to be the lack of information. On this basis, Steyerl examines the role played by the image production process – of which she is herself a part – and technological tools as witnesses to the truth when we write our common history.
Hito Steyerl is educated from the University of the Arts in Tokyo and the University of Television and Film in Munich, and holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She has had several solo exhibitions, recently at Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, 2011 and her work has been included in group exhibitions and biennials all over the world. Hito Steyerl lives in Berlin.
Exhibition - Hito Steyerl: The Kiss
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Song Dong (CN)
The public may try their hands at calligraphy in Chinese artist Song Dong’s work, but ink and paper have been replaced by water and stone. Since 1995 Song Dong has used a calligraphy brush to write with water on pavements and squares all over the world. Now he invites the public to try it themselves in his installation, which consists of 12 stones provided with bowls of water and brushes. Song Dong’s water calligraphy focuses on the writing process itself, just as in regular calligraphy with ink and paper. As a rule Song Dong’s art emphasises on the process, although the work of art as object and a final piece is also present. The artist finds his inspiration in Taoist philosophy, where not leaving visible traces behind you is a way to keep attention focused on the present. Song Dong’s works are imbued with reference to Chinese tradition and to his own life story. The title Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth refers to the five basic elements in the Chinese world order and they are represented by the installation’s materials, and the number of stones refers to a several thousand year old Chinese calendar from the Shang dynasty. But the water calligraphy is also shrouded in personal stories, such as his childhood memory of his father’s suggestion to write in water because the family could not afford ink and paper. Therefore Song Dong’s art is a way of having the past meet the present, whether it is when he retells part of his life story in a performative action, or he gives substance to Chinese traditions with modern artistic methods.
The Chinese artist Song Dong graduated from the Fine Arts Department of Capital Normal University. Lives and works in Beijing. Song Dong works with performance, video, photography and installations. He explores questions about the Chinese society and its rapid transformation these years. The idea of the ephemeral is central in his works and he often uses very humble materials - the philosophy seems to be that the process is more important than the result. Song Dong’s works often draw from everyday life and has a strong autobiographically element. His works expresses his thinking on philosophical issues in a plain form. Song Dong has made several solo shows for instance at UCCA in Beijing - Wisdom of the Poor from 2005- 2011 and Waste Not at MoMA, New York in 2009. Furthermore he has exhibited at dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel and Venice Biennial in 2011.
Watch video interview with Song Dong
Exhibition: Unfinished Journeys
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 24 - Nov 11
Read more
Performance: Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 25, 2pm
Read more
Superflex (DK)
The focal point of SUPERFLEX’s project is the Copenhagen Opera House. The work Mærsk – The Opera, is an opera composed by the artists’ group that deals with the relations between a single privileged person, his firm and the surrounding society. The Opera House, situated in a majestic axis opposite Amalienborg, the queen’s residence and Marmorkirken was a so-called public donation financed simply and solely by Denmark’s wealthiest man Mærsk McKinney-Møller – and his fund for general purposes.
SUPERFLEX think of their projects as tools and are known for among others Free Shop and Guarana Power, which experiment with alternative economies and selforganisation. Their latest tool is the park area Superkilen at Nørrebro, a project that challenges the aesthetics, as well as rules and regulations, for the city planning of Copenhagen. In addition they also work with more generally known genres such as film and installation.
The exhibition presents the score for Mærsk – The Opera, an opera licensed typical of SUPERFLEX’s activist open-source strategies, with no copyrights. Furthermore during the Festival the work will be presented to the Opera – also as a public donation. The opera is composed by Anders Monrad, who works with both classical and electronic music, and the libretto is written by SUPERFLEX in collaboration with Nikolaj Heltoft. Note: The work on the opera was commenced before Mærsk McKinney-Møller’s death and therefore has no relation to this event.
Established in 1993 by three student of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Superflex describe their works as democratic tools to address not only globals problems, but also to present real alternatives to the reality in which they intervene. The group has e.g. worked with guarana farmers in the Amazon and created alternative energy in a village in Tanzania.
Watch video interview with Superflex
Exhibition: Conversations
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Joachim Koester (DK)
Joachim Koester (b. 1962 in Copenhagen, based in Copenhagen and New York) is an artist who works principally with film and photography, exploring subjects such as historical memory and altered states, and moving between documentary and fiction. Many of Koester’s works deal with lost or suppressed histories, including the histories of alternative communities. The artist has described his search for these narratives as ‘ghost hunting’, involving the seeking out and recording of forgotten information. The exhibition at Charlottenborg will be Koester’s largest exhibition in Denmark to date and will present a range of works made since 2005, including some of the artist’s most important film installations. The exhibition design has been conceived by the artist, and will take the form of an immersive environment which will transform the grand set of galleries in Charlottenborg’s south wing.
Charlottenborg is presenting two exhibitions as part of its contribution to the Copenhagen Art Festival in autumn 2012. The exhibitions, by the Danish artist Joachim Koester and the Scottish artist Ruth Ewan, both reflect the theme of ‘community’ that underlies the festival as a whole – and these exhibitions explore, in particular, notions of alternative communities.
Koesters works have been shown at Documenta X, Kassel, Johannesburg Biennale, Johannesburg, Venice Biennale, Manifesta, Trento, Tate Triennial, London, as well as in solo shows at CASM, Center d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum, Mexico City, Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, Insitut d’art contemporain,Villeurbanne, MIT, Boston and S.M.A.K, Stedelijk Museum Voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium.
Exhibition
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Aug 24 - Dec 30
Read more
Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti (BR)
With Brazilian artists Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescentis’s gleaming, interactive floor sculpture Soil, you are literally on shaky ground. The installation consists of 1x1 metre metal plates that tip and tilt in all directions when you step on them. Depending on direction and force, every step triggers a mechanical wave through the floor. The more people on the floor, the more movement and sound is generated. The polished, mirrored surface, resembling a water level, reflects light and throws dynamic shadows on the wall. The immediate effect is a sensuous, aesthetic experience, that children also find fun. And when you reach steady ground again, you are suddenly aware of your own weight once more. Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti work with interfaces between the auditive, the visual and the tactile that invite the audience to play. Their poetic exploratoria of basic elements and forms – such as mirrors, water, sunlight, boxes and tunnels – manipulate the sensory and natural environments and reawaken the astonishment of being a body in the world.
Cantoni and Crescenti work together in the development of strategies for the experimentation and implementation of audio-tactile-visual interfaces that make it possible for the public to explore and interact naturally with data banks and virtual, remote or hybrid environments. Rejane Cantoni (b. 1959) studied communication, semiotics and visualization of information systems in São Paulo and Geneva and Leonardo Crescenti studied architecture at FAU/USP in São Paulo. As director, he has realized 13 short films receiving numerous awards and national and international participations, including 3 participations in the Director´s Fortnight in the Cannes Film Festival.
Watch video interview with Cantoni & Crescenti
Watch video from Soil
Exhibition: Beyond Good and Evil
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Sep 30
Read more
Artist talk: Disturbances
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 25, 4pm
Read more
Build your own green instrument
Build your own green instrument with music archaeologist Cajsa S. Lund
Create your own flute from a hazelnut or a straw - the Swedish music archaeologist Cajsa S. Lund will teach how to create green instruments, as it has been done in Scandinavian society since the Stone Age.
Build your own green instrument
Workshop for children of all ages
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Oct 21, 2pm
Guided Tour: Yorgos Sapountzis
Meet the artist Yorgos Sapountzis for a guided tour of Deus Ex Machina. The exhibition is Sapountzis’ first solo presentation in Denmark, and this afternoon he will talk about his practice with the exhibited works as his starting point. Afterwards we will serve coffee and cake. The guided tour will be in English.
Guided Tour: Yorgos Sapountzis
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Oct 21, 3pm-4pm
Forensics and necro-aesthetics
The use of forensic technology such as DNA-tests and 3D laser scans plays an increasingly important role in legal, scientific, socio-political and artistic fields. At Overgaden this can currently be experienced in Hito Steyerl’s exhibition The Kiss, which raises a number of questions: How do you document genocide, which techniques are available, how do you turn a dead body into evidence – and how can art contribute in this context? This evening will include presentations by professor at Department of Forensic Medicine Niels Lynnerup, PhD at Danish Institute for International Studies Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke and MA in Comparative Literature Mikkel Krause Frantzen. They will, among other things, discuss legal anthropology, archaeology of genocide, forensic science, necro-aesthetics and necropolitics. The event will be in Danish.
Forensics and necro-aesthetics
Debate
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Oct 11, 5:30pm-7:30pm
Nordic Focus IV - The Future of Being Together
Last Autumn, Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh curated an exhibition at Overgaden entitled Terms of Belonging, addressing the future of being together from a Nordic point of view. Building on the show, curators Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh have commissioned a series of texts, each one building on the last, by Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, Merijn Oudenampsen, Rebecka Thor, Erlend Hammer, and Brian Holmes to put current thinking on social formations and exclusion into dialogue with the hope of both frank conversation about our contemporary context, and the possibilities that artistic practices offer in rethinking and undermining the drive towards exclusion.
Please join contributors Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen (art historian), curator and writer Nina Möntmann, and art historian Rebecka Thor as they challenge each other’s positions and reflect on the potentials and challenges of being-in-common. All contributors have been asked to prepare 2 questions for their co-contributors which will spark the afternoon’s debate. The conversation will be moderated by Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh.
In his essay Xenophobia and Fascism in the Outskirts of Northern Europe Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen writes, “Since the mid-1990s the xenophobic Danish People’s Party has campaigned against a perceived Muslim threat and advanced the idea of a certain Danish national identity that must be protected against invading hordes.” In a text building on his own sociological research and responding to Rasmussen, Merijn Oudenampsen states in On fascism and populism that, “In a rather cynical spirit of competition, one could argue that the Netherlands figures as prominently on the Islamophobia shortlist. Two relatively small and traditionally uneventful countries have found themselves at the forefront of the emergence of the Islamophobic New Right in Europe.” Both writers offer bleak views of the current conditions of belonging in what are often seen as progressive social democratic states.
Nina Möntmann, a curator who has worked extensively on the relation of art to social structures, argues that, “challenging contemporary forms of racism with post-national imaginaries and possibilities for action. Art institutions assume a new political role in this process: they can provide an open public space for experiments in radical democracy, a space that does not exist within the boundaries of political institutions.”
For more information about Terms of Belonging, see the projects website: www.termsofbelonging.org
Nordic Focus IV - The Future of Being Together
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Oct 13, 3pm-5pm
Free entry
Language: english
Nordic Focus III - OUT OF THE DARK
Out of the Dark - Scandinavian Female Film Directors 1960-1990
OUT OF THE DARK is a unique possibility to see some of the most influential Scandinavian female directors from last century. Some of the films haven't been shown since 1987 and there have not been any previous historic festival of the kind before.
The importance of the 5 films shown in OUT OF THE DARK is not to be underestimated. There is in these films an attempt to address a feminine gaze as opposed to the dominant male one. But it is not only from a gender political position these films are of a huge importance. The films had also formally a great importance. Up until 1990 the film industry was available for this type of experimentation and the films were shown in mainstream cinemas.
20 years later it is about time to scrutinize the lack of courage in the film industry to engage in alternative positions. By showing these films that has been quietly suffocating in our Nordic film archives we take the first steps in this re-emancipation.
So sisters, grab a brother under each arm and join us from 6 PM in Husets Biograf Sundays September 30 and October 7 – it’s free!
The whole event is part of Copenhagen Art Festival and is arranged by Joachim Hamou. For more information: mailhamou@yahoo.com or +45 25123201.
The films will be presented chronologically as listed below.
Sunday September 30 from 6pm:
Älskande par (Loving couples) by Swedish Mai Zetterling 1964 was so controversial in its content it was banned from the Cannes film festival. She was way ahead of her time in terms of both content and form. In this film she touched upon topics such as homosexuality, women's right and nudity.
Finnish director Eija-Elina Bergholm's Marja pieni (Poor Maria) from 1972 tells the tragic tale of the dependent woman Marja who struggles with the problem of getting her own independence economically and sexually in an oppressive society.
The Norwegian director Anja Breien made the film Hustruer (Wives) in 1975. One could speculate it was a direct comment to her male counterpart John Casavettes’ Husband. The film follows a group of wives in the Norwegian society. Anja Breien has never hided her social political engagement and her raw style gave her the title of "dogma director" in the international film guide 20 years before the genre was invented.
Sunday October 7 from 6pm:
Barnförbjudet (Child Prohibited) from 1979 by the Swedish director and artist Marie-Louise Ekman (previously DeGeer-Bergenstråhle) is perhaps one of the earliest examples of a crossover artist being both a director and artist. In this film, that until 1987 was shown in Danish schools, she reverses perspective in a grotesque Alice-in-Wonderland-world, where the child tries to make sense of the adults around her refusing to make her birthday a success.
The Norwegian director Anja Breien made a second Hustruer (Wives) film in 1985 exactly 10 years after the first one. She used the film as an anthropological tool to investigate the state of mind and the changes in society with the exact same cast as in the first film.
The Finnish director Eija-Elina Bergholm's second feature film Angelas krig (Angela's War) from 1984 was mostly produced in Sweden and was a controversial issue in Finland since the story turns around a Finnish nurse falling in love with a German soldier. Finland made an alliance with Germany during a brief period of the Second World War to get rid of the Russian occupation. However the Finns ended up having to fight a costly war against both the Germans and the Russians and therefore the love story was not as clear as the audience could wish for. Neither for the producers who cut her budget and forced Eija-Elina to make a reduced version.
The Norwegian director Anja Breien ends the festival with her last Hustruer (Wives) film from 1995. Now 20 years after the first one. And still with the same cast.
Nordisk Fokus III
OUT OF THE DARK - Scandinavian Female Film Directors 1960-1990
Film Series
Husets Biograf
Sep 30, from 6pm & Oct 7, from 6pm
Free entry
Programme Sep 30 (films are shown in order as below from 6pm):
- Älskande par (Loving couples) - Mai Zetterling, 1964
- Marja pieni (Poor Maria) - Eija-Eline Bergholms, 1972
- Hustruer (Wives) - Anja Breien, 1975
Programme Nov 7 (films are shown in order as below from 6pm):
- Barnförbjudet (Child Prohibited) - Marie-Louise Ekman, 1979
- Hustruer (Wives) - Anja Breien, 1985
- Angela’s War (Angelas krig) - Eija-Eline Bergholm, 1984
- Hustruer (Wives) - Anja Breien, 1995
Public Space – Public Opinion
During the weekend September 14. - September 16. Copenhagen Art Festival will participate in the Art Copenhagen 2012 art fair. With Public Space - Public Opinion Copenhagen Art Festival takes the urban space indoors by creating a lounge area with Copenhagen park benches and elements from the festival opening programme. Guests can experience Tim Hinman's Taxi Tales, Wooloo's large-scale candy vending machine Bonus Balls and works from Jeppe Hein's ILOVIT. The lounge will also act as venue for debates about art, economy, media and public opinion:
On Sunday September 16. there will be two debates. From 2pm - 3pm Copenhagen Art Festival curator Christian Skovbjerg Jensen presents a talk with artist group Wooloo. From 3pm - 4pm Copenhagen Art Festival editor Jesper N. Jørgensen presents a debate with Christoffer Bruun (Politiken), Michael Thouber (DR2) and Jacob Fenger (SUPERFLEX).
The talks will deal with art and it's potential for being part of debates about society and for being percieved as a natural part of journalistic and political discussions. How do we take art from the reviews section to the debate section, and can art make a serious contribution to public discourse and be taken serious as a proper contribution towards a better understanding of current events?
Forum, Art Copenhagen
Sep 16, 2pm - 4pm
Julius Thomsens Plads 1
1925 Frederiksberg C
Forum Scenen
2pm - 3pm: Copenhagen Art Festival curator Christian Skovbjerg Jensen presents a talk with artist group Wooloo. 3pm - 4pm: Copenhagen Art Festival editor Jesper N. Jørgensen presents a debate with Christoffer Bruun (Politiken), Michael Thouber (DR2) and Jacob Fenger (SUPERFLEX).
Nordic Focus II
Seminar on economy and alternative economic practices with artist Kalle Brolin, chairman of Landsforeningen for Økosamfund Ditlev Nissen, Die Zeit journalist and editor Thomas Fischermann, and economist at Danmarks Nationalbank Niels Peter Hahnemann.
What is our economic reality? What views characterize the different economic agendas? What are the current considerations with regard to economy and alternative economic practice? How can we think economy in the future? And what economic communities can we and do we want to develop?
Nordic Focus II
Debate with Ditlev Nissen, Thomas Fischermann, Kalle Brolin og Niels Peter Hanhemann.
Sep 15, 3pm
Forum, Art Copenhagen
Julius Thomsens Plads 1
1925 Frederiksberg C
About Nordic Focus
Joachim Koester - Book Launch
Charlottenborg invites you to an artist talk and book launch in connection with our recently opened survey exhibition by Joachim Koester.
Joachim Koester has, in collaboration with the Dutch association If I Can’ t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution and kestnergesellschaft - Institute of Contemporary Art in Hanover, created a monographic publication with the title I’m Only A Receiving Apparatus published by Walther König Verlag. The book consists of two volumes - the first focuses on a single work entitled To navigate, in a genuine way, in the unknown necessitates an attitude of daring, but not one of recklessness (movements generated from the Magical Passes of Carlos Castaneda) (2009) and the second volume presents an overview of Koester's works from recent years.
Furthermore, Motto Charlottenborg has invited Joachim Koester to curate a special selection of books that has been influential for his artistic practice. Joachim Koester will present these books in a special artist talk and the event will provide a unique introduction to some of the literary references in Koester's works.
Guests are served a glass of wine and If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution will be present.
Joachim Koester - Book Launch
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Sep 12, 5pm - 8pm
No admission fee
There Be Dragons
Roland Joffés new epic dives into the turbulence of the Spanish Civil War and tells of the foundation of the Catholic order Opus Dei. “Though far from propagandistic, the picture goes a long way to correct the sensationalistic smearing the organisation received at the hands of The Da Vinci Code, primarily by focusing on the spirit in which Escrivá founded the movement, rather than the more controversial accusations surrounding its secrecy and alleged support of Franco's fascist regime.” (Variety)
There Be Dragons
Sep 2, 2pm / Sep 12, 9:45pm / Sep 23, 4:15pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
Les mains en l'air
In the vein of Ken Loach and Robert Guédiguian, Hands Up is an hommage to the youthful struggle for justice. A group of Parisian children ‘disappear’, just to go into hiding in a basement. The aim is to create a stir and put pressure on the French immigration authorities regarding the case of a Chechen girl. Romain Goupil’s directorial style is charming, stripped of melodrama and full of nice little details that pinpoint the children’s psychology.
Les mains en l'air
Sep 6, 9:45pm / Sep 16, 1:45pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
Women Without Men
Acclaimed video artist Shirin Neshat’s beautiful feature film debut tells a tale of Iranian women all living under the control of men. Munis is kept locked up by her brother who is eager to see her married soon. Her friend Faezeh is being abused in one of the city’s brothels. For a time, the women are united in a peaceful garden. But men and military can’t be kept out forever.
Women Without Men
Sep 1, 7:30pm / Sep 6, 4:45pm / Sep 26, 4:45pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
Black Legion
Not your average Humphrey Bogart flick! When the hard-working American machinist Frank (Bogart) loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he is seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners (read: Jews) through violence. For its time a particularly realistic insider’s view on a hate group’s inner workings.
Black Legion
Sep 8, 2:15pm / Sep 20, 9:15pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
Martha Marcy May Marlene
One of this year’s favorites amongst Danish film critics tells the story of Martha, a fugitive from a Christian sect which systematically abuses and brainwashes its female members. But fleeing is one thing. Coping with paranoia and insecurity while living with people unable to understand is something altogether different. “Deals with serious subject matter without budging,” wrote the newspaper Information.
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Sep 22, 7:15pm / Sep 26, 7:15pm / Sep 29, 2pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
Seance on a Wet Afternoon
There is psychological nerve, occultism and tragedy galore in this masterful British thriller. Myra, a self-styled psychic in London, concocts a scheme to gain celebrity. She convinces her weak-willed husband to kidnap the young daughter of wealthy parents. She will go to the parents with extra-sensory messages that will help the police find the child and the ransom. The plan unfolds beautifully, until the police want to check her out.
Seance on a Wet Afternoon
Sep 4, 4:30 pm / Sep 23, 7:15pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
Secret Ceremony
Sinister and chilling psycho-drama about a washed-up and mentally unstable former prostitute (Liz Taylor) who believes she sees her deceased daughter alive. The doppelganger, Cenci (a harrowing Mia Farrow), is an orphan herself, so the two woman start living together for mutual comfort. The line between roleplaying and reality, however, is thwarted when Cenci’s incestuous stepfather (Robert Mitchum) enters.
Secret Ceremony
Sep 8, 4:30pm / Sep 19, 9:45pm / Sep 21, 9:30pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
Buried Secrets
This poetic, yet harsh women’s tale from Tunisia could be supplanted to any present-day Middle Eastern country torn between tradition and modernity. An orthodox Muslim woman lives with her two daughters in an abandoned villa – and stay hidden in the basement even after the owner returns. As the younger daughter is drawn towards the ‘decadent’ lifestyle of the proprietor, her mother has to take alternative measures to control her.
Buried Secrets
Sep 2, 2:15pm / Sep 6, 9:30pm / Sep 23, 4:30pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
The Wicker Man
This occult classic takes the collective secrecy of an island community as its point of departure. The police detective Howie (Edward Woodward) investigates the disappearance of a young girl on a Scottish isle. His intermittent encounters with recognizable/absurd phenomena such as degeneration, pub culture, brainwashing, sex orgies and sacrifice of virgins makes ‘The Wicker Man’ an unpredictable, unsettling experience.
The Wicker Man
Sep 5, 9:30pm / Sep 14, 9:45pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
Le Sex Shop
Observant little comedy about Claude (played by director Claude Berri himself) whose bookstore is losing money fast. In stead, he opens a ‘sex shop’ with ‘leather goods’ (i.e. S/M hardware), vibrators, sex publications etc. The success is instant. The proprietor, too, hesitantly samples the world of swinging, but nothing seems to work out quite right.
Le Sex Shop
Sep 1, 9:30pm / Sep 22, 9:30pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 55
Læs mere
The Hamburg Cell
September 11 viewed from an alternative perspective. Antonia Bird’s accomplished and carefully researched film is a portrait of the individuals behind in the 9/11 attacks – but focused on their life in Germany before the attack. While not Al Qaeda propagandist in the least, the film which shows that the terrorists were real, intelligent people, who devoutly believed what they were doing was the right thing.
The Hamburg Cell
Sep 12, 9:30pm / Sep 22, 2pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 45
Read more
Nordic Focus
Artistic communities in the Nordic countries: past, present and future. This was the theme of a special focus during the Copenhagen Art Festival, where a number of Nordic critics, curators and artists were invited to present and debate artistic communities as they unfolded earlier, as they are doing right now, and how we imagine they can in the future. In other words, special communities that have been – and remain – important for the artistic milieu in the Nordic countries, as well as experimental collaborations that still have an influence on the development of Nordic artistic and cultural life.
Every Saturday between September 1. and October 13. an event was presented that was organised, arbitrarily and with no fixed framework, by an invited curator or artist who has a specific perspective on the Nordic milieus. This means that each of the events would differ in form, content and location.
Events
Nordic Focus I
Jonatan Habib Engqvist
Kaffebord at Den Frie Udstillingsbygning – Common histories and the artist initiative.
Sep 1, 6pm
Read more
Nordic Focus II
Debate with Ditlev Nissen, Thomas Fischermann, Kalle Brolin og Niels Peter Hanhemann.
Forum, Art Copenhagen
Julius Thomsens Plads 1
1925 Frederiksberg C
Sep 15, 3pm-4:30pm
Read more
Nordic Focus III
OUT OF THE DARK - Scandinavian Female Film Directors 1960-1990
Film Series arranged by Joachim Hamou
Husets Biograf
Sep 30, from 6pm & Oct. 7, from 6pm
Read more
Nordic Focus IV
The Future of Being Together
Debate
Overgaden Institute og Contemporary Art
Oct 13, 3pm-5pm
Read more
ILOVIT Weekend Programme
ILOVIT Weekend Programme Aug 31 - Sep 2
Friday Aug 31
10.00 Yoga for kids
13.00 Campfire & twistbread, Alexander Tovborg (DK)
15.00 Street-sale, Jeppe Hein (DK)
15.00 Gazpacho-cooking, Gi/IGA (DK)
16.00 Music by Fanfare Talku (FR)
17.00 Campfire & twistbread, Alexander Tovborg (DK)
17.00 Cooking-performance by Max Frey (DE)
18.00 Wanna Be Loved - performance by Mathias Kryger & Sophie Dupont (DK)
19.00 Ring of Fire, Jeppe Hein (DK)
19.00 Music by Tele Rouge (DK)
20.00 Music by Nis Bysted (Thulebasen) (DK)
20.00 Ring of Fire, Jeppe Hein (DK)
Saturday Sep 1
11.00 Yoga
12.00 Cooking-performance at Amager Torv by Max Frey (DE)
13.00 Campfire & twistbread, Alexander Tovborg (DK)
14.00 Gazpacho-cooking, Gi/IGA (DK)
15.00 Street-sale, Jeppe Hein (DK)
15.30 Performance by Borderline Circus (DK)
16.00 Cooking-performance by Max Frey (DE)
17.00 Music at Amager Torv by Fanfare Talku (FR)
17.00 Campfire & twistbread, Alexander Tovborg (DK)
18.00 Dionysiac - Performance by Rodrigo Maltez Novaes (BR)
19.00 Ring of Fire, Jeppe Hein (DK)
19.00 Music by Fanfare Talku (FR)
20.00 Ring of Fire, Jeppe Hein (DK)
Sunday Sep 2
10.00 Yoga
13.00 Musicparade; Kgs. Nytorv to cityhall by Fanfare Talku (FR)
13.00 Campfire & twistbread, Alexander Tovborg (DK)
14.00 Gazpacho-cooking, Gi/IGA (DK)
14.00 Music by Fanfare Talku (FR)
14.00 Cooking-performance by Max Frey (DE)
15.00 Street-sale, Jeppe Hein (DK)
15.00 Performance by Cikaros Circus (DK)
15.30 Performance by Borderline Circus (DK)
16.00 Performance by Cikaros Circus (DK)
17.00 Campfire & twistbread, Alexander Tovborg (DK)
17.00 Music by Kalles World Tour (DK)
18.00 Music by Little Bird (DK)
19.00 Ring of Fire, Jeppe Hein (DK)
20.00 Music by Copenhagen Art Festival and friends (DK)
20.00 Ring of Fire, Jeppe Hein (DK)
ILOVIT Weekend Programme
Aug 31 - Sep 2
Højbro Plads
No admission fee
About ILOVIT
Nordic Focus. I
Curator of (I)ndependent People at The Reykjavik Arts Festival 2012, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, has been invited to organize the first of four Nordic Focuses at the Copenhagen Art Festival.
The Visual Arts Focus of the Reykjavík Arts Festival 2012, (I)ndependent People: Collaborations & Artist Initiatives, which officially ends on September 2nd, conceptually holds many points of correspondence to both the theme of Copenhagen Art Festival and the history of the venue and working methods employed by Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, Center for Contemporary Art.
In Reykjavík, several of the trajectories of artist-initiated practices from the Nordic region – spanning the past forty years – served as a genealogical background to questions posed in both the exhibitions and an international seminar, such as: Do we share common, ‘alternative’ histories in the Nordic region? If so, what are they and is it relevant to peruse these connections today? How have these networks changed over time? Is it possible, or even desirable, to create dynamic and sustainable collaborations?
Trajectories from this on-going investigation will be presented at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art is staged as an open conversation, echoing Den Frie´s Projekt Kaffebord.
Confirmed participants (more to be confirmed): Jonatan Habib Engqvist, curator of (I)ndependent People, Stockholm, Linus Elmes, director UKS, Oslo, Gunnhildur Hauksdottír, director of the Living Art Museum; Reykjavík, Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg, director of Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, Sidsel Nelund, ph.d. fellow and board member of UKK, and artists Søren Thilo Funder and Lea Porsager.
The audience is also invited to take part of the discussion around the table.
On display during the conversation: No Gods No Parents. Participants are encouraged to contribute.
No Gods No Parents, an editorial project by UKS – operates along similar lines. The editorial group states that; “it is not an archive and the content is not in any way structured according to the way information is contained between the covers of a book”; yet historical artefacts connected to artistic production have been, and will continue to be, collected by the group.
Nordic Focus. I
Jonatan Habib Engqvist
Kaffebord at Den Frie Udstillingsbygning – Common histories and the artist initiative.
Sep 1, 6pm
About Nordic Focus
Gesamt
LARS VON TRIER (DK), JENLE HALLUND (DK)
The controversial film director Lars von Trier was the brains behind the epoch-making art film project GESAMT, which is inspired by the idea of Gesamtkunst and the ultimate combination of the art forms. Based on a set of dogmas, dictated by von Trier, people from around the world had been invited to submit their own film and sound recordings, relating to one or more of the following classics: Ulysses by author James Joyce, August Strindberg’s play Faderen, the Zeppelintribüne – the controversial monument by Albert Speer in Nuremberg, D’où Venons Nous? Que Somme Nous? Où Allons Nous? by the painter Paul Gauguin, Sonata in A major for violin and piano by composer César Franck and Choreography by Sammy Davis Jr. More than 400 people from 52 countries took up the challenge and submitted their material to GESAMT. The Danish film director Jenle Hallund was responsible for the making of the final result, the film installation Disaster 501: What Happened to Man?, which can be viewed as a reflection of our time.
Supported by the Capital Region of Denmark, the Danish Film Institute, the Film Workshop, Dyrup, and the Danish Arts Council. Media partner: Commute Media.
Gesamt: Disaster 501 - What Happened to Man?
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Oct 12 - Dec 30
Gesamt - meet the director
Cinematheque
Aug 25
Read more
Other dates
Submission of material:
Aug 6 – Sep 6, www.gesamt.org
Organized by Lars von Trier, filmdirector and Christian Skovbjerg Jensen, curator Copenhagen Art Festival. Directed by Jenle Hallund.
The project is realised in collaboration with media partners S-more and Commute Media.
A Present In Print: Summer Print Workshop
A Present In Print: Summer Print Workshop
The curator collective If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution conducted a workshop to play with the practice and politics of publications. Over ten days, nine participants from Copenhagen, Bergen and Malmoe Art Academies worked towards a collaboratively produced publication in collaboration with curator Vivian Ziherl and artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy. The working-phase of the project started with an open seminar gathering case histories, artist presentations and other points of inspiration, including the guests artist Steffani Jemison, senior editor at Bidoun magazine Michael Vazquez and the festival artists Ruth Ewan, Song Dong and Shuddhabrata Sengupta from Raqs Media Collective. Following the seminar, a newsstand was presented together with a temporary library of black American periodicals produced during the Great Depression, compiled by Steffani Jemison and Jamal Cyrus. The programme closed with a brunch launch of the collaborative publication.
Realised in collaboration with the Royal Danish Art Academy and KUNO.
Alpha's Bet Is Not Over Yet
Exhibition/Study Group
Det Kgl. Danske Kunstakademi
Kgs. Nytorv 1
Aug 27 - Sep 1
Read more
The Social Space of the Page
Seminar
Det Kgl. Danske Kunstakademi - Hirschsprung Auditorium
Peder Skramsgade 2
Aug 25, 3pm
Read more
Brunch Launch
Det Kgl. Danske Kunstakademi - Billedhuggerhaven
Kgs. Nytorv 1
Sep. 2, 11:30am
Read more
Koelse (FI)
There is quivering, rattling and beeping when the experimental Finnish music collective (Kokeellisen elektroniikan seura – Association of experimental electronics) unpack their curious rubbish dump collection of discarded electronic equipment and make new music arise from trash. Koelse issue an invitation to an untraditional music parade through the city with their do-it-yourself instruments and mobile units. The parade winds around the five art institutions and out to The Factory of Art and Design on Amager, where the group are to open the alternative artfair Alt_Cph 12 with a concert. During the following days Koelse will occupy a stand at the fair where they will work on their projects. At the same time the group will perform concerts in different places in the city space and will temporarily transform one of Copenhagen’s celebrated bars, where their blaring technical, unrefined music is developed in an intimate concert. The apparently worthless instruments that the consumer society has dumped in the electronic graveyard are returned to a new network of noisy lo-fi commotion and transformed into something that is worth watching and listening to. The project is realized in collaboration with Fabrikken for Kunst og Design & Alt Cph.
Music Parade
Parade from the five art centres to the opening of Alt_Cph 12 art fair
Aug 29, 12 (noon)
Read more
Aug 30
Spontaneous concerts in the city centre
Aug 31
Workshop & Concert
Fabrikken for Kunst og Design
Read more
Music parade and opening concert with KOELSE
Koelse (FIN) is a group of experimental electronics enthusiasts. They gather old consumer-electronics and transform them into sound producing devices. With these devices they play concerts, build installations and walk the streets in an inviting fashion to let people join and play with them
This year Alt_Cph and Copenhagen Art festival collaborate on a project with Koelse at its core.
Koelse will be part of both the program at Alt_Cph and Copenhagen Art Festival using their DIY instruments and Mobile Units to join the two art events in an interactive musical and artistic project. Throughout their stay, Koelse will have a stand at the fair, where you can come see them work on their projects.
For the opening of Alt_Cph Wednesday the 29th of August Koelse will make a music parade walking with their DIY instruments through the city with pick-up spots at each of the five contemporary art centers behind Copenhagen Art Festival, ending up at the fair where they will play an opening concert.
The musical parade will start at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art Wednesday at 12.00 o’clock and go on to Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Kunstforeningen GL STRAND and Højbro Plads and then on to Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art before walking to Alt_Cph on Amager.
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Oslo Plads 1
12.00-12.20
PARADE Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art– Kunsthal Charlottenborg
40 min. (via Bredgade)
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Nyhavn 2
13.00-13.20
PARADE Kunsthal Charlottenborg – Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
15 min (through Magasin passagen)
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Nikolaj Plads 10
13.40-14.00
PARADE Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center – Højbro Plads/GL STRAND
15 min. (via GL STRAND and back)
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND/Højbro Plads
Gl. Strand 48
14.15-14.45
PARADE from GL STRAND/Højbro Plads – Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
30 min. (via Knippels Bro)
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Overgaden Neden Vandet 17
15.15-15.30
PARADE Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art – Alt_Cph
40 min. (via Torvegade – Amager Fælledvej – Sundholmsvej)
Alt_Cph
Sundholmsvej 46
2300 København S
16.10-17.30
Lecture: The Body
The Body
We all have at least one thing in common, our physical dimension: The Body.
Its functions, development, limitations and significance change in relation to the society in which it exists, while its processes, needs and longings are the same. In CaféTeatret, a series of talks will be presented during the opening days of the festival with topics such as birth, death, reason, intoxication, sleep, beauty, nakedness, bodily fluids, tantra and sex.
Lecture programme
Lecture: Birth and Death
Ph.d., philosopher, Robyn May Schott
Aug 27, 5pm
Read more
Lecture: Reason and Intoxication.
Ph.d in Art History Lars Bang Larsen
Aug 28, 5pm
Read more
Lecture: Beauty and Nudity.
Prof. Dr. Winfried Menninghaus
Aug 29, 5pm
Read more
Lecture: Bodily Fluids
Dr. Marco Pasi
Aug 30, 5pm
Read more
Lecture: Tantra.
Simon Krohn
Aug 31, 5pm
Læs mere
Lecture: Eros og Civilisation
Marta Kuzma
Aug 31, 7pm
Read more
Lecture: Driving the Blues Away. A Monologue
Olof Olsson
Sep 2, 5pm
Læs mere
Taxi Tales!
What can we learn from a 5-minute conversation with a complete stranger? How can a small, public, movable spaces like the taxicab bring people together and express a common experience? Taxi Tales! lets taxi drivers share their stories and experiences with a wider audience – and invites you to listen.
Sound artist Tim Hinman gathered the stories of Copenhagen taxi drivers and produced a montage of stories in motion. The sound montage was broadcast on Universitetsradioen, frequency 95,5 MHz, all weekdays at 9am and 9pm, between the 24th of August and the 2nd of September. At these times all the drivers involved tuned their radios in to Taxi Tales! to share their stories with their customers.
Watch video interview with Tim Hinman
Montage: Taxi Tales!
Aug 24 - Sep 2, 9am & 9pm
Universitetsradioen (95,5 MHz)
About Universitetsradioen
Karoline H. Larsen: Jætte Træet
Karoline H. Larsen meet participants as a giant nearly 3 meters high giant tree in black foam rubber and tells of the anger, grunting giants of Norse Mythology and their attempt to overt subversion of world order. The Giant Tree's history starts in the medieval Saint Nicholas Church and ends at the marketplace Amagertorv, where participants are invited to jointly build a Giants' parade that echoes of primordial force, screaming, church bells and foam-stone throwing. In the market mix scary giants and charred trees with ordinary passers invite to join in and asking when the alien is part of the negotiations, and when they are merely spectators.
Watch video interview with Karoline H. Larsen
Artist run workshop: Jætte Træet
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Nikolaj Plads
Aug 28, 2pm; Sep 1, 10am; Sep 1, 3:30pm
No admission fee
Language: Danish & English
For children between 5 and 15
Watch video from Jætte Træet
Women Without Men
Acclaimed video artist Shirin Neshat’s beautiful feature film debut tells a tale of Iranian women all living under the control of men. Munis is kept locked up by her brother who is eager to see her married soon. Her friend Faezeh is being abused in one of the city’s brothels. For a time, the women are united in a peaceful garden. But men and military can’t be kept out forever.
Women Without Men
Zanan-e bedun-e mardan / Shrin Neshat, 2009 / 95 min.
Intro by film critic Nanna Frank Rasmussen (Jyllands-Posten/Filmmagasinet Ekko).
Aug 29, 7pm
Kulturhuset Viften
Rødovre Parkvej 130, 2610 Rødovre
Tickets: DKK 65 (ticket includes entrance for 1 companion)
Strøget 50 yr. birthday
PROGRAMME:
- Kl. 10.30: Karoline H Larsen ’Jætte Træet’ performance for children (Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center)
- Kl. 12.00: Foodperformance by Max Frey in collaboration with Copenhagen Cooking (Amagertorv)
- Kl. 13.00: CPH World Music Festival: Flamenco Passion (Amagertorv)
- Kl. 14.00: Performance by Magnús Logi Kristinsson (Amagertorv)
- Kl. 14.30: Spoken word - Claus Ankersen – in collaboration with CPH Litt (Amagertorv)
- Kl. 15.30: Karoline H Larsen ’Jætte-Træet’ performance for children (Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center)
- Kl. 17.00: Music: Fanfare Talku (Amagertorv)
Strøget 50 yr. birthday
Strøget - the Main Shopping Street / Amagertorv / Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contempory Art Center
Sep 1, 10:30am-5pm
Routes 2 Communities
Your pathway into Copenhagen Art Festival. Routes to Communities guides you through the city and the festival art works, opening up new perspectives and providing insight into contemporary art. See artists from all over the world talk about their work, watch wild and exciting performances and listen to tales of communities, you never knew existed. Using propositions about communities, routes through the festival have been established – try them out!
Camilla Berner: Cut the Grass
Camilla Berner invites you to Cut the Grass of the inner city park, Østre Anlæg. Using an old lawn mower you will form part of a movement of grass cutters doing garden maintenance in a space that is usually kept by local authorities.
Please be aware of change in programme. Cut the Grass will take place at Østre Anlæg (not at Kongens Have).
Watch video from Cut the Grass
Watch video interview with Camilla Berner
Cut the Grass
Artist Run Workshop
Østre Anlæg, the lawn behind the National Gallery of Denmark
Aug 25, 2pm-4pm
Aug 29, 2pm-4pm
No admission fee
For all ages
Secret Societies
Sects, cells, cults, brotherhoods. Secret societies, be they religious orders or artists’ collectives, terrorist cells or sex clubs, have one thing in common: they provoke us. They hide from the public eye, and yet they are based on the very foundations of democracy such as freedom of assembly and belief. During the festival the phenomenon was put into focus in a fascinating and disturbing film programme that was screened at the Cinemateket in Copenhagen and at five culture centres in the Capital Region. Selected screenings began with an introduction or debate, based on the film and the themes of the film programme.
Realised in collaboration with Cinemateket.
Artists: JOSÉ ÁLVAREZ (MX), RAJA AMARI (TN), MATTHEW BARNEY (US), ERIC BAUDELAIRE (FR), CLAUDE BERRI (FR), ANTONIA BIRD (UK), LUIS BUNŨEL (ES), ROBINSON DEVOR (US), SEAN DURKIN (US), BRYAN FORBES (UK), ROMAIN GOUPIL (FR), ROBIN HARDY (UK), MONSTER JIMENEZ (PH), ROLAND JOFFÉ (UK/FR), YORGOS LANTHIMOS (GR), JOSEPH LOSEY (US), ARCHIE MAYO (US), SHIRIN NESHAT (IR), SAULI SIRVIÖ (FI)
Film Series: Secret Societies
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 55
LISTEN TO YOUR CITY
The sky above us, the water beneath. Between them the rumble of the city.
On architect Kaj Gottlob’s elegant, functionalist Knippelsbro, which is one of Copenhagen’s main thoroughfares, German sound art specialist Georg Weckwerth gathered together a number of artists’ sound installations, sound-and space compositions, mixed media and multimedia works as well as visual works and artistic interventions. The works were installed in and around the two towers of the bridge that are evocative of ships, and together with the urban backdrop of sounds they created a new experiential space for the thousands of people that passed by every day.
Realised in collaboration with SNYK, Wundergrund Festival and Tonspur.
*dedicated to John Cage (1912-1992)
Artists: TYLER ADAMS (US), SAM ASHLEY (US), UWE BRESSNIK (AT), JOHN CAGE (US), ANGÉLICA CASTELLÓ (MX), TEUN DE LANGE (BE), HENNING CHRISTIANSEN (DK), DIETHER DE LA MOTTE (DE), MATTHIAS DEUMLICH (DE), FRANZ GRAF (AT), PETER GRAHAM (CZ), SABINE GROSCHUP (AT), GARY HILL (US), ROBERT JACOBSEN (DE), HILARY JEFFERY (UK/NL), JACOB KIRKEGAARD (DK), CHRISTOPH KORN/LASSE-MARC RIEK (DE), DAISUKE KOSUGI (JP/NO), VIA LEWANDOWSKY (DE), GORDON MONAHAN (CA), BENOÎT MAUBREY (US/FR/DE), BEN PATTERSON (US), LEE RANALDO (US), REINER RUTHENBECK (DE), TOMAS SCHMIT (DE), SIGTRYGGUR BERG SIGMARSSON (IS), TIMM ULRICHS (DE), MAURICE VAN TELLINGEN (NL), KRIS VLEESCHOUWER (BE), GEORG WECKWERTH (DE), GERLINDE WURTH (AT).
LISTEN TO YOUR CITY — LISTENING TO ART: A TOWER FULL OF SOUNDS ETC.*
Curated by Georg Weckwerth (DE)
Aug 25 – Sep 2, 10am-8pm
Thereafter SAT+SUN 12(noon)-5pm, until Nov 4.
Location: Knippelsbro
The south tower, and outdoors on the bridge
Wooloo
An over-dimensioned candy vending machine stands in the courtyard at Charlottenborg, where one can buy a small ball for twenty kroner. The eatable ball in the machine contains real hair – delicately processed into delicious candy – from Danish financiers and property speculators who have earned fortunes from their involvement in the financial crisis. The work refers to the complex processes that have deprived the community of billions and made private individuals into society’s winners. With reference to cannibalistic rituals where the person eating wishes to take over the enemy’s strength, Bonus Balls may be viewed as resistance towards the capitalist system. But while eating parts of individuals who have eaten from the public chest at first might look like revenge, the ritual might rather represent our resistless co-existence with those who plunder our society. Neither the work nor those who pay to eat from it create any real resistance to capitalism, but rather incorporate the consumer more closely in the logic of the market. Bonus Balls examines the distance between our idea of human community and the reality of the model of society with its lack of solidarity.
The artists’ group Wooloo, Martin Rosengaard and Sixten Kai Nielsen, work with a multi-branched, often involving and politicised practice that exaggerates situations with a view to challenging our self-perception, social codes and relations with one another.
Bonus Balls
Charlottenborg, the Courtyard
Aug 24-Nov 15
About Wooloo
ILOVIT
During the ten days of the festival, Højbro Plads was transformed into an effervescent artistic playground and market square, focusing on common entertainment, play and creativity. And on transforming and changing something, together. Under the guidance of Jeppe Hein, as many as 25 Danish and international artists and many others contributed with sculptures, installations and a daily schedule of performances, morning-gymnastics, music, food-acrobatics, speeches, teaching and much more.
ILOVIT was supported by Nordea Fonden.
ILOVIT
Højbro Plads
No admission fee
Aug 24 - Sep 2 10am-10pm
ILOVIT Weekend Programme
Aug 31 - Sep 2
Read more
Alexander Tovborg (DK)
Après-Nous (DE)
Bernd Trasberger (DE)
Claus Larsen (DK)
Dan Graham (US)
David Zink Yi (PE)
Fanfare Talku (FR)
Florian Neufeldt (DE)
Gi/IGA (DK)
Jacob Dahl Jürgensen (DK)
Jeppe Hein (DK)
Kaspar Bonnén (DK)
Kenneth A. Balfelt (DK)
Marianne Jørgensen (DK)
Massimo Bartolini (IT)
Max Frey (DE)
Mie Olise (DK)
Mino Trafeli (IT)
Poul Pedersen (DK)
Pilvi Takala (FIN)
Rodrigo Maltez-Novaes (BR)
Rune Bosse (DK)
Søren Engsted (DK)
Thilo Frank (DE)
TIKA (CH)
Ulrik Weck (DK)
and others…
Guided Tour
Overgaden invites you to a guided tour of the current exhibitions in the company of Solveig Lindeskov Andersen, a member of Overgaden’s curatorial staff. Afterwards we will serve coffee and cake. The event will be in Danish.
Guided Tour
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
No admission fee
Language: Danish
Sep 2, 3pm-4pm
Guided Tour
Overgaden invites you to a guided tour of the current exhibition in the company of Karen Mette Fog Pedersen, a member of Overgaden’s curatorial staff. Afterwards we will serve coffee and cake. The event will be in Danish.
Guided Tour
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
No admission fee
Language: Danish
Aug 26, 3pm-4pm
Artists and Communities
Ruth Ewan, Joanna Rajkowska, Jeanne Van Heeswijk, Rejane Cantoni og Leonardo Crescenti, Hesselholdt/Mejlvang, Damian Ortega, Dias & Riedweg, Otto Karvonen.
Moderator: Christine Buhl Andersen, director KØS –museum of art in public spaces.
A number of Copenhagen Art Festival's artists will participate in the seminar Artists and Communities at Loppen, Christiania, where Christine Buhl Andersen will moderate a conversation and discussion with the artists about their work in relation to the festival's theme of community.
Afterwards dinner at Spiseloppen. For booking: mkt@cph-artfestival.org
Artists and Communities
Seminar
Loppen
Sydområdet 4B
Aug 25, 6pm-8pm
No admission fee
For booking: mkt@cph-artfestival.org
Fanfare Talku
Fanfare Talku
Fanfare Talku
Musical Parade
Klas Eriksson: McDonalds Copenhagen
Food can be ordered at a booth with a hand-painted McDonald’s logo. When the order has been taken, a long chain of people is activated and the chain winds through streets and in and out of shops to a real McDonald’s. The people in the chain deliver the order through a small note, money passes from hand to hand and up to the junk food giant, where the food is ordered again and is sent back through the chain to end in the hands of the person who has ordered it. Like a weird parlour game in which the connection from producer to consumer is made both visible and difficult, Klas Eriksson’s performance links meaninglessness with activism. The burger reaches the customer, but on its journey through the absurd treadmill it alternates between being the entertaining and amusing centre of human contact and a dead object of protest against the steadily increasing atomisation of food production that continues to distance itself from human hands.
Klas Eriksson: McDonalds Copenhagen
Performance
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Sep 1, 3pm-5pm
About Klas Eriksson
Les gens d'Uterpan: X-Event 2.6 le goût
A group of silent, unremarkable dancers dressed in soft everyday clothes walk around freely, mix with the audience, sit down, lie on the floor. They stare at each other and the audience in a neutral manner, without any direct intention. Or are they looking through the audience at something beyond the space, are they waiting for something? The dancers' presence is insistent and gives the audience the possibility to get quite close to their bodies and become part of their patterns of movement, without any barriers between spectator and performance. Les Gens d’Uterpan’s performance thus punctures the fixed format of performance art and is dissolved in the encounter with the audience, which can be intense or distanced according to how the visitors themselves react. At the same time the challenge of the encounter shifts the focus back onto the space we are in. As suggested by the X in X-Event, absolutely anything can be put into the X’s place. The event does not contain anything definite, the performance has started and the dancers have choreography, but we do not know in advance what will be put into the framework. This means that no two members of the audience will have the same experience. Les Gens d’Uterpan are choreographers Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet, who explore the relationship between dance and pictorial art.
Performers: Sophie Demeyer, Luis Corvalán Correa, Deborah Lary, Stève Paulet, David Zagari
Sound concept: Nicolas Martz
Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet (les gens d'Uterpan): X-Event 2.6 le goût
Performance
Højbro Plads
30. aug. kl. 15:00-18:00
Les gens d'Uterpan: X-Event 2.6 le goût
A group of silent, unremarkable dancers dressed in soft everyday clothes walk around freely, mix with the audience, sit down, lie on the floor. They stare at each other and the audience in a neutral manner, without any direct intention. Or are they looking through the audience at something beyond the space, are they waiting for something? The dancers' presence is insistent and gives the audience the possibility to get quite close to their bodies and become part of their patterns of movement, without any barriers between spectator and performance. Les Gens d’Uterpan’s performance thus punctures the fixed format of performance art and is dissolved in the encounter with the audience, which can be intense or distanced according to how the visitors themselves react. At the same time the challenge of the encounter shifts the focus back onto the space we are in. As suggested by the X in X-Event, absolutely anything can be put into the X’s place. The event does not contain anything definite, the performance has started and the dancers have choreography, but we do not know in advance what will be put into the framework. This means that no two members of the audience will have the same experience. Les Gens d’Uterpan are choreographers Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet, who explore the relationship between dance and pictorial art.
Performers: Sophie Demeyer, Luis Corvalán Correa, Deborah Lary, Stève Paulet, David Zagari
Sound concept: Nicolas Martz
Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet (les gens d'Uterpan): X-Event 2.6 le goût
Performance
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 29, 3pm-6pm
Les gens d'Uterpan: X-Event 2.6 le goût
A group of silent, unremarkable dancers dressed in soft everyday clothes walk around freely, mix with the audience, sit down, lie on the floor. They stare at each other and the audience in a neutral manner, without any direct intention. Or are they looking through the audience at something beyond the space, are they waiting for something? The dancers' presence is insistent and gives the audience the possibility to get quite close to their bodies and become part of their patterns of movement, without any barriers between spectator and performance. Les Gens d’Uterpan’s performance thus punctures the fixed format of performance art and is dissolved in the encounter with the audience, which can be intense or distanced according to how the visitors themselves react. At the same time the challenge of the encounter shifts the focus back onto the space we are in. As suggested by the X in X-Event, absolutely anything can be put into the X’s place. The event does not contain anything definite, the performance has started and the dancers have choreography, but we do not know in advance what will be put into the framework. This means that no two members of the audience will have the same experience. Les Gens d’Uterpan are choreographers Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet, who explore the relationship between dance and pictorial art.
Performers: Sophie Demeyer, Luis Corvalán Correa, Deborah Lary, Stève Paulet, David Zagari
Sound concept: Nicolas Martz
Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet (les gens d'Uterpan): X-Event 2.6 le goût
Performance
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 28, 4pm-7pm
How to Be an Artist by Night
We are suddenly Lilliputians in a shadow figure collection of oversize books, among which are some H.C. Andersen-like silhouettes. In the city flyers are handed out urging us to immediately take creative action in the closest library by putting passages from our favourite books into other books. And late one evening there is a lecture about wisdom, alternative forms of knowledge and autodidactism. ”What does knowledge taste of and how can we share it?” Raqs Media Collective explore the relationship of eagerness to learn to knowledge, power, utterance and silence. With an emphasis on literature and knowledge as something that can be confused, mixed up, infected and transformed, the Indian collective propose different, more creative, original and personals ways of acquiring insight and expanding one’s horizon than what the established institutions have to offer. Knowledge cannot be isolated at authoritarian universities, knowledge does not produce intelligence; on the contrary, thought generates fresh knowledge. As an agent of discovery and change, the autodidact makes his or her world accessible and reachable.
Raqs Media Collective: How to Be an Artist by Night
Late Night Lecture
Fiolbiblioteket, Fiolstræde 1
No admission fee
Aug 27, 10pm-12(midnight)
Watch video with Raqs Media Collective
Les gens d'Uterpan: X-Event 2.6 le goût
A group of silent, unremarkable dancers dressed in soft everyday clothes walk around freely, mix with the audience, sit down, lie on the floor. They stare at each other and the audience in a neutral manner, without any direct intention. Or are they looking through the audience at something beyond the space, are they waiting for something? The dancers' presence is insistent and gives the audience the possibility to get quite close to their bodies and become part of their patterns of movement, without any barriers between spectator and performance. Les Gens d’Uterpan’s performance thus punctures the fixed format of performance art and is dissolved in the encounter with the audience, which can be intense or distanced according to how the visitors themselves react. At the same time the challenge of the encounter shifts the focus back onto the space we are in. As suggested by the X in X-Event, absolutely anything can be put into the X’s place. The event does not contain anything definite, the performance has started and the dancers have choreography, but we do not know in advance what will be put into the framework. This means that no two members of the audience will have the same experience. Les Gens d’Uterpan are choreographers Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet, who explore the relationship between dance and pictorial art.
Performers: Sophie Demeyer, Luis Corvalán Correa, Deborah Lary, Stève Paulet, David Zagari
Sound concept: Nicolas Martz
Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet (les gens d'Uterpan): X-Event 2.6 le goût
Performance
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Aug 27, 3pm-7pm
Joanna Rajkowska: The Light of the Lodge
A solemn procession moves through the town and the neon logo of the Order of Freemasons blazes in red. Is a new sect about to conquer Copenhagen? Is something about to happen? Is it a provocation? Joanna Rajkowska explores objectives and aesthetic instruments behind a private community with roots in European identity, which hide their activities while maintaining public visibility. The project throws light on borderlines and balances between publicity, privacy and secrecy: The Freemasons are not a secret community, but a community with secrets. The lodge of the Danish Order of Freemasons on Blegdamsvej is publicly recognisable, they have a website that is accessible and they announce their meetings, but the content of these meetings and rituals are kept secret and we do not really know what the members do. In this way they are less secret than companies who do not wish to publish their tax information. But precisely having an audience for their secretiveness makes the men-only-club fascinating and cult. Rajkowska works with the city as a place for groupings, confrontation and possible changes that depend on how we ourselves organise it and establish ourselves within it.
Watch The Light of the Lodge video
Joanna Rajkowska: The Light of the Lodge
Performance-procession
The Royal Library
Aug 26, 11pm-1am
Aug 29, 11pm-1am
Les gens d'Uterpan: X-Event 2.6 le goût
A group of silent, unremarkable dancers dressed in soft everyday clothes walk around freely, mix with the audience, sit down, lie on the floor. They stare at each other and the audience in a neutral manner, without any direct intention. Or are they looking through the audience at something beyond the space, are they waiting for something? The dancers' presence is insistent and gives the audience the possibility to get quite close to their bodies and become part of their patterns of movement, without any barriers between spectator and performance. Les Gens d’Uterpan’s performance thus punctures the fixed format of performance art and is dissolved in the encounter with the audience, which can be intense or distanced according to how the visitors themselves react. At the same time the challenge of the encounter shifts the focus back onto the space we are in. As suggested by the X in X-Event, absolutely anything can be put into the X’s place. The event does not contain anything definite, the performance has started and the dancers have choreography, but we do not know in advance what will be put into the framework. This means that no two members of the audience will have the same experience. Les Gens d’Uterpan are choreographers Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet, who explore the relationship between dance and pictorial art.
Performers: Sophie Demeyer, Luis Corvalán Correa, Deborah Lary, Stève Paulet, David Zagari
Sound concept: Nicolas Martz
Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet (les gens d'Uterpan): X-Event 2.6 le goût
Performance
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 26, 3pm-7pm
Invisible Playground: The Copenhagen Game Tour
Since 2009 the collective Invisible Playground has made use of the city as a stage for games and competitions with the audience as participants. The group, which consists of games developers, theatre people, artists, musicians and professionals, stage place-specific, interactive games that are used to explore the city’s spaces and infrastructure and the connections between them in 1:1. The games make use of sport, theatre, role play and computer games and props, but in a live version that sends the participants on trips down steps and stairs and up in lifts through the city’s streets, underground, busses and shopping centres to carry out certain missions and reach the goal without ”dying” along the way. On the occasion of the Copenhagen Art Festival, Invisible Playground invites the public to a Copenhagen Game Tour, where participants can try four different games while moving through the Copenhagen city centre. The games make the participants aware of how the space is formed, how we navigate within it, and the influence we have – or do not have – on it. One suddenly re-experiences the city from the perspective of the child’s universe, feels frightened or excited, threatened or liberated depending on random urban situations. The rules of the game make one change one’s behaviour in accustomed surroundings and sharpen our relation to the places in which we live and which we use. The project by Invisible Playground is realised in collaboration with DAC – The Danish Architecture Centre.
Invisible Playground: The Copenhagen Game Tour
Performance, games
Storkespringvandet, Amagertorv
No admission fee
Aug 26, 2pm-5pm
Aug 27, 4pm-7pm
J&K: The Community Cycle - Birth, Life, Death and Afterlife
In a colourful, sensual mixture of performance and installation, Storkespringvandet is transformed into a sensual bath lounge, nettles into healing nectar, donkey manure into gold and Amagertorv into a camp. The four alchemistic scenes of the session look like living tableaux of a life cycle. Amagertorv is transformed to an organic, magical space where the beautiful, the luxurious and the heavenly are linked with the ugly, dirty and earthly in a ritual process that sweep props and symbols along with it in a theatrical game that cause cracks to show in fixed identities. The work is rounded off at night when the square is converted into a mosaic of colourful blankets and rugs taken over by people who sleep and hang out, and it seems to become an allegory of the beginning or end of civilisation. By means of staged characters and costumes, the artists act as the audience’s guides on the journey through the eccentric, alternative community. German-Danish artist duo J&K, Janne Schäfer and Kristine Agergaard, examine the creative relationship between fiction and reality. The Community Cycle, forming a striking contrast to the pedestrian street where the performance takes place, simultaneously celebrates the public space as a possible location for trying out ideas and actions on all of us as participants in the production of culture and ceremonies.
J&K: The Community Cycle - Birth, Life, Death and Afterlife
Performance in 4 Parts
Amagertorv
The Community Cycle. Birth - Transforming Water into Water
Aug 26, 10am-12(noon)
The Community Cycle. Life - Transforming Poison into Nectar
Aug 27, 1pm-4pm
The Community Cycle. Death - Transforming Shit into Gold
Aug 29, 8pm-11pm
The Community Cycle. Afterlife - Transforming Space into Space
Aug 30, 11pm-4am
Gesamt - meet the director
Gesamt - meet the director
Introduction to Gesamt. Meet director Jenle Hallund.
Lars von Trier sets the rules, you create the material and the female director Jenle Hallund puts it all together.
Project website: gesamt.org
Gesamt - meet the director
Talk
Cinematheque, Bio Carl
Gothersgade 55
Aug 25, 7:45pm-8:45pm
No admission fee
Booking: Cinematheque webpage
WOOLOO Party
WOOLOO Party
Wooloo celebrates 10 yr. summer party: everybody is welcome
WOOLOO Party
Aug 25, 12noon - 12midnight
Carlsberg
Pasteursvej 2
Yuan Gong: Close to Heaven
A fragrant mist forces itself out between the arches in the passage under Regensen, the student residence at the Round Tower on Købmagergade. The mist hangs in the air about a metre above the ground, fills the whole passage, swallows those who move into it and disturbs the otherwise busy traffic on the pedestrian street. In traditional Chinese culture Qi, which directly translated means spirit, air or steam, but can also be described as vital force or energy, is what keeps every living thing alive. Following an eight-month research trip to Tibet, Yuan Gong has taken on Qi as a metaphor for human existence and devoted his work to investigating and expressing this symbol of life and death. It is an important point for Yuan Gong that the cosmic spirit cannot be captured statically or visually but must be experienced with all the senses and in all its dynamism. Installed in the historical context, the fleeting poetical sculpture leads the thoughts also to a mysterious, steaming Copenhagen, where there is something in the wind, there is a ground mist, concealed events and alchemistic transformations are hidden in cel- lars, recesses and behind locked doors, at the same time as on the more universal level it refers to the haze, clouds, heavens and freedom of the salt of the earth.
Yuan Gong: Close to Heaven
Performance
Aug 25, 5pm-6pm
Regensens Passage (by Rundetårn)
Les gens d'Uterpan: X-Event 2.6 le goût
A group of silent, unremarkable dancers dressed in soft everyday clothes walk around freely, mix with the audience, sit down, lie on the floor. They stare at each other and the audience in a neutral manner, without any direct intention. Or are they looking through the audience at something beyond the space, are they waiting for something? The dancers' presence is insistent and gives the audience the possibility to get quite close to their bodies and become part of their patterns of movement, without any barriers between spectator and performance. Les Gens d’Uterpan’s performance thus punctures the fixed format of performance art and is dissolved in the encounter with the audience, which can be intense or distanced according to how the visitors themselves react. At the same time the challenge of the encounter shifts the focus back onto the space we are in. As suggested by the X in X-Event, absolutely anything can be put into the X’s place. The event does not contain anything definite, the performance has started and the dancers have choreography, but we do not know in advance what will be put into the framework. This means that no two members of the audience will have the same experience. Les Gens d’Uterpan are choreographers Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet, who explore the relationship between dance and pictorial art.
Performers: Sophie Demeyer, Luis Corvalán Correa, Deborah Lary, Stève Paulet, David Zagari
Sound concept: Nicolas Martz
Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet (les gens d'Uterpan): X-Event 2.6 le goût
Performance
Aug 25, 3pm-7pm
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Jeanne Van Heeswijk: Public Faculty No. 5
Over four afternoons, Jeanne van Heeswijk in collaboration with Louise Sidenius from Spruijt Printing House, local experts and everyone who would like to join in, will produce public signboards that comment on the financial savings measures taking place all over Europe. The open workshop will attempt to extract parts of public conversations about how we can be more inventive and sustainable in our way of life in order to make them visible in the public arena. Public Faculty, which has pre- viously taken place in Macedonia, the Netherlands, Serbia and England, refers to Joseph Beuys’s epoch-making work ’Richtkräfte’, an installation with 100 blackboards created for public discussion. The idea is to engage in learning by means of exchanging knowledge in a certain locality. By visualising the discourses, the signs set a rethinking of the public arena in motion through collective cultural action. Driven by a belief in the connection between art, life and space, Jeanne van Heeswijk engages herself in local communities and involves the public in social projects with communication and change as the objective. The projects take place in the public space, which is explored, reshuffled and used as a platform for interaction and cultural production to provide new communities with the possibility of growing.
Jeanne Van Heeswijk: Public Faculty No. 5
Workshop
Købmagergade 39 (by Løvstræde)
Aug. 25, 1pm-5pm
Aug. 26, 1pm-5pm
Aug. 27, 1pm-5pm
Aug. 28, 1pm-5pm
Klas Eriksson: McDonalds Copenhagen
Food can be ordered at a booth with a hand-painted McDonald’s logo. When the order has been taken, a long chain of people is activated and the chain winds through streets and in and out of shops to a real McDonald’s. The people in the chain deliver the order through a small note, money passes from hand to hand and up to the junk food giant, where the food is ordered again and is sent back through the chain to end in the hands of the person who has ordered it. Like a weird parlour game in which the connection from producer to consumer is made both visible and difficult, Klas Eriksson’s performance links meaninglessness with activism. The burger reaches the customer, but on its journey through the absurd treadmill it alternates between being the entertaining and amusing centre of human contact and a dead object of protest against the steadily increasing atomisation of food production that continues to distance itself from human hands.
Klas Eriksson: McDonalds Copenhagen
Performance
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 25, 12pm(noon)-2pm
About Klas Eriksson
Magnús Logi Kristinsson: In a quiet spiral on a busy street
In extension of his performance during the winter festival Wondercool, Icelandic artist Magnús Logi Kristinsson continues his performance series with music stands. In February Kristinsson literally placed himself on statues and church towers above the hurly-burly of the city. This time he takes his stand right in the middle of the throng in Amagertorv on six afternoons, and apart from some empty music stands placed around him, he becomes part of the city and the general public. The first day he is enclosed by 10 music stands, and from here on the number of stands grow until 40 on the last day of the performance. One gets the impression that Kristinsson is about to play some music, but instead he stands motionless. The action never happens, the climax fails to appear, nobody applauds, and nothing happens, at any rate something other than what is expected. Except for the growing numbers of music stands. On a sunny day he looks like a soloist about to gather his orchestra, and on a rainy day a soloist abandoned by the orchestra. In Kristinsson’s work performance becomes antiperformance, it is the audience who act, the surrounding world becomes the place where something takes place, and what is left is the artist’s body and our own, and the poetry of everyday life has to fill out the minimal, eventless performance. Magnús Logi Kristinsson works with a subtle and poetic presence, both the body’s presence in space and his own in relation to the audience.
Watch video of In a quiet spiral on a busy street
Magnús Logi Kristinsson: In a quiet spiral on a busy street
Performance in 6 parts
Amagertorv
Aug 25, 11am-2pm
Aug 26, 2pm-5pm
Aug 28, 2pm-5pm
Aug 29, 2pm-5pm
Aug 31, 2pm-5pm
Sep 1, 2pm-5pm
Klas Eriksson: Mono Colored Atmosphere
Eriksson’s performance takes place across from Christiansborg and is part of the opening of Copenhagen Art Festival.
Watch video of Mono Colored Atmosphere
Klas Eriksson: Mono Colored Atmosphere
Performance
Aug 24, 7:45pm-7:50pm
Ved Stranden (the canal opposite Christiansborg)
About Klas Eriksson
Rodrigo Maltez Novaes: How Soon is Now?
Rodrigo Maltez Novaes focuses on the kiss and the intimate feelings and sounds that accompany a kiss. He presents both a two-hour kiss performance with a selected co-performer at the opening of the festival and ILOVIT and a collective kiss performance, which will be documented and later will form a video work.
Rodrigo Maltez Novaes: How Soon is Now?
Performance
Aug 24, 5pm-7pm
Højbro Plads
Marcello Maloberti: Sommerfugle spiser bananer (The End)
24 performers, each carrying a big porcelain tiger, travel through Copenhagen by bus and train and on foot like an enigmatic migration or a sectarian parade. The flamboyant tiger sculptures have aggressive colours and are exaggeratedly decorative, but as they wander through the city they also seem vulnerable. When they have reached their destination, the performers line the tigers up in a row. At Marcello Maloberti’s command, all the performers undress and remain naked while lifting the tigers up over their heads for a moment. At a new command, they let the tigers fall and smash to the ground. The violent action first echoes of the smashed fragments, after which there is silence. The noble, exotic ceramic figures have only their flamboyant, seemingly outer strength. They are unable to defend themselves, but in spite of their harmlessness, they are destroyed. The ritual plays on shock, terror, disaster and expulsion without any obvious political purpose, but on a foundation of strange comic effects and allegorical aesthetics that nonetheless involve doubt about how we as people can live with each other.
Marcello Maloberti: Sommerfugle spiser bananer (The End)
Performance
Aug 24, 4:45pm-5pm
Amagertorv
Fanfare Talku
Fanfare Talku
Brass Orchestra from Paris
Fanfare Talku
Brass Orchestra from Paris
Aug 24, 4pm–8pm
Højbro Plads
Driving the Blues Away. A Monologue
A performance lecture by artist Olof Olsson.
Driving the Blues Away marks the ending of the lecture programme about the body. It is a meditation and celebration of the body and the failures and perversity of language.
The Body
We all have at least one thing in common, our physical dimension: The Body.
Its functions, development, limitations and significance change in relation to the society in which it exists, while its processes, needs and longings are the same. In CaféTeatret, a series of talks will be presented during the opening days of the festival with topics such as birth, death, reason, intoxication, sleep, beauty, nakedness, bodily fluids, tantra and sex.
Watch video with Olof Olsson
Driving the Blues Away. A Monologue - Olof Olsson
Lecture: performance
CaféTeatret
Skindergade 3
Sep 2, 5pm
No admission fee
Language: english
WE – an evening session
WE – an evening session produced by Jacob Lillemose, Joachim Hamou and Mette Marie Kjær.
Free Chai will be served from 10:30pm.
WE – an evening session
Session
Grand Teatret
Mikkel Bryggersgade 8
Aug 31, 10:30pm - 01:00am
No admission fee
Language: english
Lecture: Eros and Civilization
Marta Kuzma
Marta Kuzma is Director of OCA in Oslo, Norway, and has among other projects curated the exhibition and publications project Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia? The publication released in 2011 serves as an anthology of original writings by Herbert Marcuse, Wilhelm Reich, Susan Sontag that delves into the more comprehensive issues of censorship and society.
The Body
We all have at least one thing in common, our physical dimension: The Body. Its functions, development, limitations and significance change in relation to the society in which it exists, while its processes, needs and longings are the same. In CaféTeatret, a series of talks will be presented during the opening days of the festival with topics such as birth, death, reason, intoxication, sleep, beauty, nakedness, bodily fluids, tantra and sex.
Watch video with Marta Kuzma
Lecture: Eros and Civilization. Marta Kuzma
CaféTeatret
Skindergade 3
Aug 31, 7pm
No admission fee
Language: english
Lecture: Tantra
Simon Krohn
Simon Krohn is a philosopher and yoga teacher. Krohn is specialized in Indian filsofi and is currently writing a book about yoga philosophy. Krohn will speak about tantra – including it’s potential for human transformation, corporeal pleasure and spiritual discipline.
The Body
We all have at least one thing in common, our physical dimension: The Body. Its functions, development, limitations and significance change in relation to the society in which it exists, while its processes, needs and longings are the same. In CaféTeatret, a series of talks will be presented during the opening days of the festival with topics such as birth, death, reason, intoxication, sleep, beauty, nakedness, bodily fluids, tantra and sex.
Watch video with Simon Krohn
Lecture: Tantra. Simon Krohn
CaféTeatret
Skindergade 3
31. aug. kl. 17:00
No admission fee
Language: english
Lecture: Bodily Fluids
Dr. Marco Pasi: Body Fluids
The Body
We all have at least one thing in common, our physical dimension: The Body. Its functions, development, limitations and significance change in relation to the society in which it exists, while its processes, needs and longings are the same. In CaféTeatret, a series of talks will be presented during the opening days of the festival with topics such as birth, death, reason, intoxication, sleep, beauty, nakedness, bodily fluids, tantra and sex.
Watch video with Marco Pasi
Lecture: Bodily Fluids. Dr. Marco Pasi
CaféTeatret
Skindergade 3
Aug 30, 5pm
No admission fee
Language: english
Lecture: Beauty and Nudity
Lecture: Beauty and Nudity. Prof. Dr. Winfried Menninghaus
Prof. Dr. Winfried Menninghaus is a Professor at the Freie Universität in Berlin and is internationally known for his research on the concept of beauty. For the lecture Menninghaus will have a special emphasis on human hairiness, nudity and the concept of beauty.
The Body
We all have at least one thing in common, our physical dimension: The Body. Its functions, development, limitations and significance change in relation to the society in which it exists, while its processes, needs and longings are the same. In CaféTeatret, a series of talks will be presented during the opening days of the festival with topics such as birth, death, reason, intoxication, sleep, beauty, nakedness, bodily fluids, tantra and sex.
Watch video with Winfried Menninghaus
Lecture: Beauty and Nudity. Prof. Dr. Winfried Menninghaus
CaféTeatret
Skindergade 3
Aug 29, 5pm
No admission fee
Language: english
Lecture: Reason and Intoxication
Lecture: Reason and Intoxication. Ph.d in Art History Lars Bang Larsen
"...by the insufferable torment he bore, he danced and sung naked in the streets, not knowing one ecstasy from another": On Reason and Intoxication. Lars Bang Larsen is a curator and writer, and holds a Ph.d in art history with a dissertation on psychedelic concepts in contemporary art. Bang Larsen will talk about intoxication from the point of view of Thomas de Quincey's books Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821) and The Last Days of Immanuel Kant (1827).
The Body
We all have at least one thing in common, our physical dimension: The Body.
Its functions, development, limitations and significance change in relation to the society in which it exists, while its processes, needs and longings are the same. In CaféTeatret, a series of talks will be presented during the opening days of the festival with topics such as birth, death, reason, intoxication, sleep, beauty, nakedness, bodily fluids, tantra and sex.
Watch video with Lars Bang Larsen
Lecture: Reason and Intoxication. Ph.d in Art History Lars Bang Larsen
CaféTeatret
Skindergade 3
Aug 28, 5pm
No admission fee
Language: english
Lecture: Birth and Death
Ph.d., Philosophy, senoir researcher: Robyn May Schott: Birth and Death
Robyn May Schott researches in the field of genocide studies and feminist philosophy. She has particularly focused on gender-related war crimes, and how violence is related to political communities. May Schott will in her lecture focus on the subjects Birth and Death, derived from her anthology Birth, Deathn and Femininity; Philosophies of Embodiment (2010)
The Body
We all have at least one thing in common, our physical dimension: The Body.
Its functions, development, limitations and significance change in relation to the society in which it exists, while its processes, needs and longings are the same. In CaféTeatret, a series of talks will be presented during the opening days of the festival with topics such as birth, death, reason, intoxication, sleep, beauty, nakedness, bodily fluids, tantra and sex.
Watch video with Robyn May Schott
Lecture: Birth and Death. Ph.d., Philosophy, senoir researcher Robyn May Schott
CaféTeatret
Skindergade 3
Aug 27, 5pm
No admission fee
Language: english
Official Opening
Copenhagen Art Festival has the pleasure of inviting you to the official opening of the festival on August 24 at 4pm. The opening will take place at Højbro Plads, which is hosting one of the festival's central projects in the inner city. All exhibitions and venues will be open.
Official opening, 4-8pm
Højbro Plads
16.00 Music
Fanfare Talku Hot
16.45 Performance
Marcello Maloberti, Butterflies Eat Bananas (The End) / Amager Torv
17.00 Opening speeches
Stine Bosse, Chairman of the Board / Copenhagen Art Festival
Uffe Elbæk, The Danish Minister for Culture
Rune Gade, Chairmand of the Danish Arts Council
Pia Allerslev, Mayor of Culture and Leisure in Copenhagen
Per Seerup Knudsen, member of Regionsrådet / The Capital Region of Denmark
17.00 Performance
Rodrigo Maltez-Novaes, How soon is now?
18.00 Music
Ruth Ewan, The Peat Bog Borarch Band
19.45 Performance
Klas Eriksson / Inner City
Andre / other venues
18.00 Event
Official presentation of Superflex' gift to the people, Mærsk - The Opera / at Nikolaj Center for Contemporary Art
20.00 Performance
Dias & Riedweg, Moving Truck / from Højbro Plads
Opening party, 9pm-3am
After the official opening, Copenhagen Art Festival invites you to an evening of music and dance with artistic interventions at Det Ny Teater. Sign up for the launch party on Facebook (limited number of people)
Read more
Official opening, 4-8pm
Højbro Plads
Brunch Launch
A Present In Print: Summer Print Workshop will close with a Brunch Launch of the collaborative publication collaboratively produced throughout the intensive programme over the festival’s opening days. The publication will compile the ideas and practices discussed and tested within the group throughout meetings with guest artists, theorists and historians, as well as through experiences of the festival. The Launch will feature accompanying scripted table-cloths and performative activations of the publication.
A Present In Print: Summer Print Workshop is presented by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, in collaboration with Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Over ten days, nine selected participants from Copenhagen, Bergen and Malmö Art Academies will work towards a collaboratively produced publication. Led by curator and critic Vivian Ziherl, in collaboration with artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, the programme will play with the practice and politics of the social space of the page.
Brunch Launch
Det Kgl. Danske Kunstakademi - Billedhuggerhaven
Kgs. Nytorv 1
Sep 2, 11:30am
No admission fee / No booking necessary
Language: english
Alpha’s Bet is Not Over Yet
Alpha’s Bet Is Not Over Yet will take place as a newsstand and temporary library of black American periodicals produced during the Great Depression (from 1929 to 1939). It will be open to the public daily from the 27th of August to the 1st of September. This presentation is the latest phase in an ongoing collaborative project by Steffani Jemison and Jamal Cyrus initiated at Project Row Houses in Houston, Texas, and presented in 2011 at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
A Present In Print: Summer Print Workshop is presented by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, in collaboration with the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Over ten days, nine selected participants from Copenhagen, Bergen and Malmö Art Academies will work towards a collaboratively produced publication. Led by curator and critic Vivian Ziherl, in collaboration with artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, the programme will play with the practice and politics of the social space of the page.
Alpha’s Bet is Not Over Yet
Exhibition / Study Group
Det Kgl. Danske Kunstakademi – Skolen for Mur og Rum
Kgs. Nytorv 1
Aug 27 - Sep 1. 1pm - 5:30pm
No admission fee / No booking necessary
Language: english
The Social Space of the Page
The Social Space of the Page is an open seminar gathering case histories, artist presentations and other points of inspiration for A Present In Print: Summer Print Workshop. Special guests for this event will include Steffani Jemison with a presentation exploring the complex space of language, literacy, and independent publishing in African American print cultures and senior editor at Bidoun magazine Michael Vazquez who will discuss the issues of networks and patronage in relation to the 1960s-70s era of pan-African magazine ‘Transition’ and its founder Rajat Neogy. Scottish artist Ruth Ewan will discuss her excavation and activation of the printed matter of protest in the UK, as well as her own publishing projects. Song Dong will be interviewed in relation to his 1997 exhibition-as-publication ‘Wild’ and its stance as a space counter to the 1990s commercialization and institutionalization of art in China.
A Present In Print: Summer Print Workshop is presented by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, in collaboration with the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Over ten days, nine selected participants from Copenhagen, Bergen and Malmö Art Academies will work towards a collaboratively produced publication. Led by curator and critic Vivian Ziherl, in collaboration with artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, the programme will play with the practice and politics of the social space of the page.
The Social Space of the Page
Seminar
Det Kgl. Danske Kunstakademi – Hirschsprung Auditorium
Peder Skramsgade 2
Aug 25, 3pm
No admission fee / no booking necessary
Language: english
Artist talk with Lise Harlev
Come and hear Lise Harlev discuss her artistic practice. Harlev works with social and ethnic issues in statements which come across as personal thoughts, but are shown in public platforms such as posters and signs. The talk will be in Danish.
Artist talk with Lise Harlev
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Nikolaj Plads 10
Sep 27, 5pm
Language: Danish
Opening Party
Copenhagen Art Festival invites you to an opening party on several floors of Det Ny Teater.
Come and celebrate the abundance of life – party, intoxication, art and dance in the beautiful and decadent rooms of the old theatre building.
Concerts, DJ’s, performances…
Opening Party
Det Ny Teater
Gammel Kongevej 29
Aug 24, 9pm-03am
The Social Act
Get a totally unique dining experience, where the usual rules and regulations of ordinary restaurant visits are suspended. Instead, something else prevails: the presence of the other guests and the overall experience of the food ingested.
The Social Act is an exclusive and unique dinner concept developed by I’m a Kombo, run by the former gourmet restaurant chefs Bo Lindegaard and Lasse Askov.
The Social Act consists of 15 dishes and water, wine, coffee.
Dinner: The Social Act
I’m a Kombo
Høkerboderne 12 (above the courtyard), Copenhagen V
Aug 26, 6:30pm
Admission: DKK 800
Limited space. Booking before Aug 24 at mkt@cph-artfestival.org
Cultural History City Walk
Join this special tour developed for the festival by the Museum of Copenhagen and focusing on the city’s cultural history. During the festival the city will be teeming with new art, but the city is also a space of signs and histories of communities that have mattered – and still do matter – to us today. The Museum of Copenhagen tour follows the trails and narratives hidden in buildings, cultures and structures of the city and investigates disparate communities.
Cultural History City Walk
Storkespringvandet, Amagertorv
Aug 29, 5pm & Sep 2, 1pm
No admission fee
For older children and adults
Language: Danish & English
Lekture: projection
Watch Marie Kølbæk Iversen’s poetic documentation of Lekture, seminars investigating the most hard core philosophy dealing with communities of taste.
Film Projection: Lekture
Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi
Rådskælderen
Oct 31, 4pm - 9pm
No admission fee
POP-UP Bar
Three Fridays in a row, you are invited to an Artist Hosted Friday Bar that is located outside of a marked rectangular area at Nikolaj Plads. There will be DJ and a bar; the rest is up to each artist. So come and join in the temporary community.
Artists:
Aug 31: FOS
Sep 7: Superflex
Sep 14: Mogens Jacobsen
Artist Hosted Friday Bar
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Nikolaj Plads 10
Aug 31, 5pm; Sep 7, 5pm; Sep 14, 5pm
No admission fee
Copenhagen Art Festival City Walk
Join a free city walk focusing on the Copenhagen Art Festival artworks in public space. Learn about art in urban space and be part of the festival theme of communities. The Copenhagen Art Festival Dialogue Guides are hosts.
Copenhagen Art Festival City Walk
Meeting place: Storkespringvandet/Amagertorv
Aug 26, 1pm (language: Danish)
Aug 28, 5pm (language: English)
Aug 30, 5pm (language: Danish)
Sep 1, 1pm (language: English)
No admission fee
For older children and adults
Berit Nørgaard: I am yours
Artist Berit Nørgaard invites you to produce your own unique notebooks to pass on to a stranger in the street, acting as vessels for the creation of moments of community in the midst of the city’s hustle and bustle.
Artist run workshop: I Am Yours
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Nikolaj Plads
Aug 26, 2pm & Aug 31, 2pm
No admission fee
Marie Kølbæk Iversen: Lekture
Artist Marie Kølbæk Iversen hosts a Lekture on communities of taste in which hard core art philosphy is taught and internalised in each participant during an intimate reading, bringing life and meaning to the hardest, most impenetrable words and works. The séances are filmed and will be shown as a film piece at a public screening on October 31.
Please be aware of change in programme. Marie Kølbæk Iversen: Lekture takes place Sep 2 at 2pm & Sep 2 at 5pm.
Watch video interview with Marie Kølbæk Iversen
Artist run workshop: Lekture
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
Rådskælderen
Kgs. Nytorv 1
Sep 2, 2pm & Sep 2, 5pm
Language: Danish & English
Age 14 and above
No admission fee
Places are limited
Booking: booking@cph-artfestival.org
Anja Franke: Teabar Waste Service
Join artist Anja Franke’s TEABAR WASTE SERVICE, an urban tea salon held in the street in which you can paint and up-cycle disused china, participating in the production of a global china set named Waste. The workshop concludes with communal tea brewing and –drinking.
Watch video from Teabar Waste Service
Watch video interview with Anja Franke
Artist run workshop: Teabar Waste Service
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Nikolaj Plads
Aug 27, 2pm & Aug 30, 2pm
No admission fee
Taxi Tales! Launch
What can we learn from a 5-minute conversation with a complete stranger? How can a small, public, movable space like the taxicab bring people together and express a common experience?
Taxi Tales! lets taxi drivers to share their stories and experiences with a wider audience – and invites you to listen. Sound artist Tim Hinman has gathered the stories of Copenhagen taxi drivers, producing a montage of stories in motion. The launch will hear these stories resound from the cabins of 10 cars in Nikolaj Plads.
Launch Event: Taxi Tales!
Nikolaj Plads
Aug 25, 12pm (noon)
No admission fee
Watch Taxi Tales! video
Luxury Art Walk
Join Camilla Rohde of Nammagorium for a specially curated tour of the city and the Copenhagen Art Festival, highlighting some of the many spectacular art pieces shown at the festival. The tour goes through Jeppe Hein’s mega installation ILOVIT and several of the kunsthalle, where you will get a chance to get aquainted with Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti’s interactive floor sculpture that literally shakes you up, Pascale Martine Tayou’s colourful explosion of flags from 54 African nations or Kartazyna Kozyra’s grotesque retelling of the Grimm Brother’s classic fairytale, Snow White.
Admission fee: DKK 250. Fee includes guided tour, a writsband allowing access to the five kunsthalle for the duration of the festival, and a coupon for a glass of wine and a snack at one of the cafés at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND, Kunsthal Charlottenborg or Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center.
Luxury Art Walk
Place: Storkespringvandet, Amagertorv
For adults
Price: DKK 250
Booking: cam@nammagorium.com
Language: English
Aug 25, 12pm (noon)
Aug 28, 12pm (noon)
Sep 2, 12pm (noon)
Danish language luxury art walks:
Aug 24, 5pm - Danish
Aug 26, 12pm (noon) -Danish
Aug 27, 12pm (noon) - Danish
Aug 29, 12pm (noon) - Danish
Aug 30, 5pm - Danish
Aug 31, 12pm (noon) - Danish
Sep 1, 12pm (noon) - Danish
Photo Challenge
Use a camera to look for meaning and photographic stories of communities! Working in small groups you’ll conduct a series of small investigations in urban space based on words given by the workshop leader. Using your camera you’ll look for conflict, power, collaboration, equality, structure, hope and dilemmas in the city. The workshop is concluded by a presentation of the images collected during the workshop and the best contributions will be exhibited on the Metro fence “Byens Hegn” in Rådhuspladsen in the center of Copenhagen, forming a mosaic that dynamically evolves thoughout the festival.
Challenge Leader: photographer Lone Eriksen. Cameras available through Copenhagen Art Festival.
Workshop: Photo Challenge
Nikolaj Kunsthal
Nikolaj Plads
Aug 25, 1pm / Sep 2, 1pm
No admission fee.
For adults and kids age 9 and above
Language: Danish/English
Booking: booking@cph-artfestival.org
Performance
The Danish poet, performer, and musician Morten Søkilde acts as the protagonist in a series of films by Joachim Koester. In this performance, staged in the centre of Koester’s solo exhibition, Søkilde focuses on human communication, and he will -through a set of nine postures - explore the tension between facial expressions on the film screen and those in the physical theatre format.
Performance: Morten Søkilde animates Joachim Koester’s exhibition
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Aug 27, 7pm
Admission with exhibition ticket (free for guests with ticket to Copenhagen Art Festival)
Sound Soup
Bones will be dug out from a big, old-fashioned soup pot, and all participants will then have the chance to create their own buzz bone or other sound tool!
Come by for a meal and learn how sound tools have been crafted for thousands of years in Denmark. The workshop will be led by the Swedish music archaeologist Cajsa S. Lund.
Workshop
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Aug 26, 12pm (noon)
Admission with exhibition ticket (free for guests with ticket to Copenhagen Art Festival)
JULIACKS: Copenhagen And The Infinite Whistle
Filmmaking as Performance: The Construction of Conflict
JULIACKS shoots the short film Copenhagen and the Infinite Whistle starring Malmo based comics artist Kolbein Karlsson as the Infinite Whistle over the course of the Alt. Cph Art Fair with Swedish artist Mikael Lindahl as cinematographer.
You are all invited to participate when she activates the audience and fellow artists she as been auditioning throughout the fair.
Performance/video shoot: JULIACKS: Copenhagen And The Infinite Whistle
Sted: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Sep 2, 12pm (noon)
Language: English
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
ALT_Celebration
We invite you to party at Alt_Cph and we’re going to celebrate a high peak at this year’s fair. The artists have been working on their projects the past three days. Enjoy the fruits of their labour. The Celebration will also treat you with a performative panel discussion about RnB and the Soul, live concerts, laser shows, a talk show performance with exciting guests, and a dance floor where a selection of the participating artists will be playing their favorite records. At 9:30pm the shoegaze-pop band Rough Days for Diamond Trade will play a concert. RDFDT is a solo project of Frederik Sølbjerg and circles around aesthetic shoegaze-pop. On stage Sølbjerg brings prominent musicians from Choir Of Young Believers, I Got You on Tape and Moi Caprice. Further more, Simon Højbo, from the artist collective Telefon til Chefen, will create visuals to support the experience of the music.
Party: ALT_Celebration
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Sep 1, 9pm - 2am
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
Rough Days For Diamond Trade with live visuals by Simon Højbo, TTC
Concert & visuals: Rough Days For Diamond Trade with live visuals by Simon Højbo, TTC
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Sep 1, 9:30pm
Language: English
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
Red Alert!
68 Squaremetres presents the talk show performance RED ALERT! With Olof Olsson and exiting guests
About Olof Olsson
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Sep 1, 8pm
Language: English
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
Beyond the Threshold there is Darkness
Danish performance artist Christian Falsnaes invites you to participate in a four-day workshop at The Factory of Art and Design during the Alt Cph art fair .
Christian Falsnaes will organize a workshop where he teaches interactive performance and performative techniques. Learn how to work with your body, timing, space and language. Get personalized teaching, coaching and evaluation, plus the opportunity to perform before an audience at an art fair
The workshop focuses on the relationship between performer and audience and takes place at the fair, where the present audience gives a unique opportunity to try different techniques in practice. During the course all participants will perform in front of and with the audience.
Performance workshop: Beyond the Threshold there is Darkness
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
To participate sign up via beyondworkshop@gmail.com
Fee DKK 500
Language: Danish/English
Mathias Kryger & Hannah Heilmann Presents
Artists/curators Mathias Kryger (DK) and Hannah Heilmann (DK) present a tipsy panel discussion about the importance of 1990s R'n'B and general observations about the soul.
Participants:
Philosopher, cultural planner and assistant professor at Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, CBS, Christian Pagh.
Artist and writer Zoltan Arà.
Performative panel discussion: Mathias Kryger & Hannah Heilmann Presents
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Sep 1, 6pm
Language: English
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
Koelse Workshop
Come build, play and hear a multitude of different DIY instruments when Koelse invite you to create you own sound machines.
Koelse Workshop
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Aug 31, 2pm.
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
The Shape Of Consensus - Chiara Giovando
Visual artist and curator Chiara Giovando (US) currently artist-in-recidence at 44 Møen gives a talk on her projects at 44 Møen and on the her research project The Shape Of Consensus.
The Shape Of Consensus - Chiara Giovando
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Aug 30, 6pm
Language: English
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
Talk with Irene de Craen
Irene de Craen gives a talk on collectivity and the flexible boundaries of art, exhibition, group, time and place in connection to the art collaborative FUCK and FATFORM, a multi-disciplinary platform in Amsterdam of which she is co-organiser.
Talk with Irene de Craen
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
29. aug. kl. 16:00
Language: English
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
Talk/virtual performance
Håndholdt presents Jacob Tækker in a talk and presentation of his new APP Man In A Box. This work is the second computer-based project Jacob Tækker has produced. Come hear Tækker explain why this is as much and APP as it is a virtual performance.
Håndholdt presents Jacob Tækker APP presentation, Man In A Box
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Aug 30, 3pm
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
Ben, Rør & Stampes Concert
Artists Anders Benmouyal, Peter Rørbæk and Karl Stampes play on their DIY instruments for the opening ceremony of the art fair.
Ben, Rør & Stampes Concert
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
29. aug. kl. 16:00
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
The Sphinx & The (meta)sky - Celebration of Michael Jackson’s 54th birthday
The Sphinx & The (meta)sky - Celebration of Michael Jackson’s 54th birthday
Sted: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Aug 29, 4pm-9pm
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
Sophie Dupont: Abstract Performance, Cutting Paper 2012
Visual artist Sophie Dupont explores the liminal space between abstraction and realism, motion and stillness, action and non-action, as well as form and content. She references her fascinations with vogue fashions, custom making beautiful outfits and shoes for her performances. She will be creating a site specific performance for the opening of the fair.
Sophie Dupont: Abstract Performance, Cutting Paper 2012
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Aug 29, 5:30pm
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
Collective Dream - Treci Beograd
The Serbian artist collective Treci Beograd are screening their video Collective Dream as a comment on the financial hardship they are undergoing due to the current state of affairs in their home country, which has made it impossible for them to participate at this year’s art fair.
Screening: Collective Dream
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Aug 29, 4pm
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
ALT_Opening
Alt Cph ’12 Copenhagen Independent Art Fair is launched Wednesday the 29th with an opening reception from 4pm-9pm. At the Ceremony we inaugurate the 20 feet high metal tower and invite you to share the kick off of the activities to fill the factory over the next five days where all the invited artists will begin to construct and expand their projects.
Special events at the opening ceremony:
Finnish experimental music collective Kolese will parade through the city and end up at the fair with their DIY instruments. Norwegian project space No Place will celebrate the life and legacy of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson on this date, his 54th birthday. Performance artist Sophie Dupont will present a site specific performance for the opening of the fair. She explores the liminal space between abstraction and realism, motion and stillness, action and non-action, as well as form and content. She references her fascinations with vogue fashions, custom making beautiful outfits and shoes for her performances. The Serbian artist collective Treci Beograd are screening their video, Collective Dream as a comment on the financial hardship they are undergoing due to the current state of affairs in their home country, which has made it impossible for them to participate at this year’s art fair.
Vernissage: ALT_Opening
Place: Fabrikken For Kunst & Design, Alt Cph ’12
Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Kbh S
Aug 29, 4pm
No admission fee with Alt Cph ticket (DKK 50). No booking necessary
All together now...
How do we share the world? Is it our capacity to enter into binding social relations that makes us human? And what about art? Do many artworks only arise through social relations or interaction? When we sense ourselves and others sensing the work? The exhibition All together now.... Works from ARKEN’s collection is ARKEN’s contribution to the Copenhagen Art Festival. The exhibition takes the pulse of communities and asks questions about the challenges, conditions and opportunities that exist for communities today.
Artists: Lars Arrhenius, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Antony Gormley, Dan Graham, Stella Hamberg, Jeppe Hein, Thorbjørn Lausten, Emil Westman Hertz, Pascale Martine Tayou, Clare Woods, Marc Quinn, et al.
The exhibition is ARKEN’s contribution to the Copenhagen Art Festival.
August 24 – Mid April 2013
ARKEN - Museum of Modern Art
Skovvej 100
2635 Ishøj
Tuesday-Sunday: 10am - 5pm
Wednesday: 10am - 9pm
Monday closed
Read more at
www.arken.dk
Hito Steyerl: The Kiss
On the ocassion of Copenhagen Art Festival, Overgaden presented a solo exhibition by the german artist Hito Steyerl. Using video, sculpture and archival material, the work gave form to a dramatic event that took place in 1993 during the war in Bosnia, when a paramilitary unit abducted 20 people from a train.
Hito Steyerl has made her mark on the international art scene as one of the sharpest observers and innovators in the documentary genre. In her critical perspective on documentary, the only objective truth appears to be the lack of information. On this basis, Steyerl examines the role played by the image production process – of which she is herself a part – and technological tools as witnesses to the truth when we write our common history.
About Hito Steyerl
Watch video interview with Hito Steyerl
Exhibition - Hito Steyerl: The Kiss
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Overgaden Neden Vandet 17
DK-1414 Copenhagen K
Opening hours:
Aug 24: 4pm-8pm
Aug 25-Sep 2: 10am-8pm
Sep 3-Oct 21: See web page for opening hours
Yorgos Sapountzis: Deus ex machina
On the ocassion of Copenhagen Art Festival, Overgaden presented a solo exhibition by the Greek artist Yorgos Sapountzis. Sapountzis created a colourful total installation specifically for Overgaden’s exhibition spaces.
Sapountzis examines the political, ideological and cultural mechanisms that underlie the construction of public monuments, and especially our relationship with them today. By highlighting the monuments’ physical presence here and now, rather than the historical context in which they are embedded, he challenges the notion of a static collective memory.
About Yorgos Sapountzis
Watch video interview with Yorgos Sapountzis
Exhibition - Yorgos Sapountzis: Deus ex machina
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Overgaden Neden Vandet 17
DK-1414 Copenhagen K
Opening hours:
Aug 24: 4pm-8pm
Aug 25-Sep 2: 10am-8pm
Sep 3-Oct 21: See web page for opening hours
Joachim Koester
Joachim Koester (b. 1962 in Copenhagen, based in Copenhagen and New York) is an artist who works principally with film and photography, exploring subjects such as historical memory and altered states, and moving between documentary and fiction. Many of Koester’s works deal with lost or suppressed histories, including the histories of alternative communities. The artist has described his search for these narratives as ‘ghost hunting’, involving the seeking out and recording of forgotten information.
The exhibition at Charlottenborg was Koester’s largest exhibition in Denmark to date and presented a range of works made since 2005, including some of the artist’s most important film installations. The exhibition design was conceived by the artist, and took the form of an immersive environment which transformed the grand set of galleries in Charlottenborg’s south wing.
Charlottenborg presented two exhibitions as part of its contribution to the Copenhagen Art Festival in autumn 2012. The exhibitions, by Danish artist Joachim Koester and Scottish artist Ruth Ewan, both reflected the theme of ‘communities’ that underlay the festival as a whole – and these exhibitions explored, in particular, notions of alternative communities.
About Joachim Koester
Exhibition: If One Thing Moves, Everything Moves
Se video fra If One Thing Moves, Everything Moves
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Nyhavn 2
1051 Copenhagen K
Opening hours:
Aug 24: 4pm-8pm
Aug 25-Sep 2: 10am-8pm
Sep 3-Dec 30: See web page for opening hours
Ruth Ewan
The works of Ruth Ewan (b. 1980 in Aberdeen, based in London) have often focused on individuals and groups who have utilised creative means to reimagine and reshape the world around them. Her exhibition at Charlottenborg was centred around a major new commission displaying a huge archive of contemporary music instruments collected from the public of the Copenhagen region, exploring the orchestra as a metaphor for a utopian society. The project involved research conducted in Christiania, the famous freetown set within Copenhagen, as well as at The Danish Music Museum. Moreover the project drew on the research on prehistoric music in Scandinavia done by music archaeologist Cajsa S. Lund. Some of the main elements of the live work during the festival were the formation of an alternative orchestra as well as a special music night set within Loppen, the celebrated music venue that forms a part of Christiania.
Charlottenborg presented two exhibitions as part of its contribution to the Copenhagen Art Festival in autumn 2012. The exhibitions, by Danish artist Joachim Koester and Scottish artist Ruth Ewan, both reflected the theme of ‘community’ that underlay the festival as a whole – and these exhibitions explored, in particular, notions of alternative communities.
About Ruth Ewan
Exhibition
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Nyhavn 2
1051 Copenhagen K
Opening hours:
Aug 24: 4pm-8pm
Aug 25-Sep 2: 10am-8pm
Sep 3-Dec 30: See web page for opening hours
Conversations
How does the individual make himself or herself heard in the community? And how does the community impart its values to the individual?
At the group exhibition Conversations, nine international contemporary artists presented works reflecting, subverting or pointing to alternatives to our usual ways of expressing ourselves and communicating with each other.
The exhibition could be found not only inside but also outside Nikolaj - for instance on the tall tower of the church building, on Strøget (the walking street) and in the digital sphere, through smartphones.
Artists:
Kutlug Ataman (TR)
Mohamed Bourouissa (FR)
Dias & Riedweg (BR/CH)
Lise Harlev (DK)
Otto Karvonen (FI)
Katarzyna Kozyra (PL)
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (MX/CA)
Manifest.AR (Var. NATIONALITIES)
Superflex (DK)
Exhibition
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Nikolaj Plads 10
1067 Copenhagen K
Opening hours:
Aug 24: 4pm-8pm
Aug 25-Sep 2: 10am-8pm
Sep 3-Oct 21: See web page for opening hours
Unfinished Journeys
Nine artists reflected upon the individual and its possibility and ability to act in local and global communities, in a globalized world characterized on the one hand by open opportunities and, on the other, by extreme restrictions.
Artists:
Yto Barrada (MA/FR)
Song Dong (CN)
Sofie Hesselholdt & Vibeke Mejlvang (DK)
Isaac Julien (UK)
Damián Ortega (MX/DE)
Kimsooja (KR/US)
Pascale Marthine Tayou (CM/BE)
Vladimir Tomić (BA/DK)
Exhibition: Unfinished Journeys
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Gammel Strand 48
DK-1202 Copenhagen K
Opening hours:
Aug 24: 4pm-8pm
Aug 25-Sep 2: 10am-8pm
Sep 3-Nov 11: See web page for opening hours
Beyond Good and Evil
Communities beyond good and evil were explored through a focus on memory, history, and recollection. Eight Danish and international artists explored these themes in different terms and media.
Artists:
Jananne Al-Ani (IR)
Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti (BR)
Latifa Eckakhch (FR/MA)
Søren Thilo Funder (DK)
Ann Lislegaard (DK)
Carsten Nicolai (DE)
Lea Porsager (DK)
Arturas Raila (LT)
Exhibition: Beyond Good and Evil
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Oslo Plads 1
DK-2100 Copenhagen K
Opening hours:
Aug 24: 4pm-8pm
Aug 25-Sep 2: 10am-8pm
Sep 3-Sep 30: See web page for opening hours
El Grito - Søren Thilo Funder
Søren Thilo Funder is showing the 1968 Mexican Documentary, El Grito, which was filmed by filmstudents during the rebellion in Mexico City. The film is one of the only visual proofs of the massacre of the students and this showing is the first time the film can be seen in Denmark with Danish subtitles.
For this event, Søren Thilo Funder is also showing a film by a group of young artists from the art centre SOMA, in Mexico City, which he invited to put together a short film program with their own art productions.
Filmscreening: El Grito
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 29, 7pm
Admission 45DKK. No booking necessary
Language: Spanish/English
Disturbances - Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti
Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti talk about concept and design of their work Soil. Imagine walking on a surface composed of planes that incline in all directions, like seesaws. In this way, each step taken produces local and global disturbances.
Artist talk: Disturbances
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 25, 4pm
Admission 45DKK. No booking necessary
Language: English
PIK-NIK Afrodiziak…..aphrozidiaque….afrosisiaque/COPENHAGEN
Concert & Picnic in Pascale Marthine Tayous installation PIK-NIK Afrodiziak…..aphrozidiaque….afrosisiaque/COPENHAGEN.
DJ (DJ Copyflex) and picnic with serving of African stew from Kates Joint.
Concert & Picnic: PIK-NIK Afrodiziak…..aphrozidiaque….afrosisiaque/COPENHAGEN
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 26, 5pm
No admission fee. Food will be sold separately.
Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth
Performance by Song Dong.
The public may try their hands at calligraphy in Chinese artist Song Dong’s work, but ink and paper have been replaced by water and stone. Since 1995 Song Dong has used a calligraphy brush to write with water on pavements and squares all over the world. Now he invites the public to try it themselves in his installation, which consists of 12 stones provided with bowls of water and brushes. Song Dong’s water calligraphy focuses on the writing process itself, just as in regular calligraphy with ink and paper. As a rule Song Dong’s art emphasises on the process, although the work of art as object and a final piece is also present. The artist finds his inspiration in Taoist philosophy, where not leaving visible traces behind you is a way to keep attention focused on the present. Song Dong’s works are imbued with reference to Chinese tradition and to his own life story. The title Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth refers to the five basic elements in the Chinese world order and they are represented by the installation’s materials, and the number of stones refers to a several thousand year old Chinese calendar from the Shang dynasty. But the water calligraphy is also shrouded in personal stories, such as his childhood memory of his father’s suggestion to write in water because the family could not afford ink and paper. Therefore Song Dong’s art is a way of having the past meet the present, whether it is when he retells part of his life story in a performative action, or he gives substance to Chinese traditions with modern artistic methods.
Watch video with Song Dong
Performance: Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 25, 2pm
No admission fee / no booking necessary
Public place near GL STRAND
Language: English
Moving Truck - Dias & Riedweg
Dias & Riedweg’s Moving Truck comes to Copenhagen! A moving truck circulates in the streets with a projection of the artist’s video Throw on its back door. The action is documented in a video to be shown in the exhibition at Nikolaj Kunsthal.
Street action: Moving Truck
Place: Højbro Plads
Aug 24, 9pm
No admission fee
Organizer: Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Manifest.AR augmented reality workshop
Find out what Manifest.AR’s smartphone-based projects are all about and how they expand our notion of communication in public spaces. Create your own contribution to Manifest.AR’s projects for Conversations at Nikolaj Kunsthal.
Workshop
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 25, 3pm
Language: English
Otto Karvonen - The Quest for a Border, 2012
During the busy shopping hours on Strøget in Copenhagen, Otto Karvonen will take people by surprise by dividing them into temporary communities.
Performance
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Place: Amager Torv
Aug 25, 1pm
No admission fee
Organizer: Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Peat Bog Boorach Band
The grand finale concert of the Peat Bog Boorach Band (Boorach means a muddled crowd, group or collection in old Scots). The band is an alternative orchestra that was formed especially for Ruth Ewan’s exhibition at Charlottenborg and is led by Andreas Führer (from the group yoyooyoy) and members of the musical collective Af Med Hovedet. The project is centred around a unique archive of contemporary instruments, and the Peat Bog Boorach Band will play their unruly and pieced together concerts on instruments from this archive.
After this finale performance, Ewan and the orchestra will sink a selection of the instruments into a lake (which will hence become a peat bog). This will be recorded as a film, which will be shown at the exhibition.
Music performance
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Aug 26, 2pm
Admission with exhibition ticket (free for guests with ticket to Copenhagen Art Festival)
Concert
The master multi-instrumentalist and saw player David Coulter who, among other things, has led Tom Waits and Robert Wilson’s opera The Black Rider, can be experienced together with the vocal talent Jason Singh, as well as the Swedish music archaeologist and musician Cajsa S. Lund. The concert will include local, prehistoric instruments, as part of Scottish artist Ruth Ewan’s exhibition at Charlottenborg, where a large archive of contemporary instruments is exhibited.
Warm up: The Peat Bog Boorach Band (Boorach means a muddled crowd, group or collection in old Scots) is an alternative orchestra that was formed especially for Ruth Ewan’s exhibition at Charlottenborg and is led by Andreas Führer (from the group yoyooyoy) and members of the musical collective Af Med Hovedet. The project is centred around a unique archive of contemporary instruments, and the Peat Bog Boorach Band will play their unruly and pieced together concert on instruments from this archive.
Concert
Place: Loppen, Christiania
Sydområdet 4b, 1st floor
Copenhagen
Aug 25, 9pm
40 DKK (free for guests with ticket to Copenhagen Art Festival)
Organizer: Kunsthal Charlottenborg & Loppen
Peat Bog Boorach Band
The Peat Bog Boorach Band (Boorach means a muddled crowd, group or collection in old Scots) is an alternative orchestra that was formed especially for Ruth Ewan’s exhibition at Charlottenborg and is led by Andreas Führer (from the group yoyooyoy) and members of the musical collective Af Med Hovedet. The project is centred around a unique archive of contemporary instruments, and the Peat Bog Boorach Band will play their unruly and pieced together concerts on instruments from this archive.
Music performance
Place: Højbro Plads
Aug 24, 6pm
No admission fee
Organizer: Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Performance
Join a nocturnal procession! Take part in Yorgos Sapountzis’ colourful and ritualistic performance, in which we rediscover places and monuments in Copenhagen’s city centre together. The performance is part of Yorgos Sapountzis' exhibition at Overgaden.
Performance
Place: Under Ejner Nielsens mosaic ceiling at Stærekassen, Det Kongelige Teater, Tordenskjoldsgade 5, 1017 Copenhagen K
Aug 28, 10pm
No admission fee. No booking necessary
Language: Danish / English
Organizer: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Finissage: Eating and Reading
For the finissage of the exhibition Deus Ex Machina Overgaden invites you to a sensuous performance evening with dinner, music and reading, carefully choreographed by Yorgos Sapountzis. The dinner is prepared by the artist himself and will be served with bacchanalian tales from Greek mythology and live music. Composer: Øyvind Torvund, violinist: Anna Lindal, text: Roberto Calasso, reader: Ole Ernst. The event will be in Danish. Participation is free but seating is limited, please sign up at info@overgaden.org or +45 32 57 72 73 no later than Wednesday October 17.
Finissage: Eating and Reading
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Oct 20, 5:30pm
No admission fee. Booking: info@overgaden.org or +45 32 57 72 73 no later than Wednesday October 17
The Overgaden challenge: Who bakes the best?
Overgaden challenges anyone with a sweet tooth and a flair for cooking to take part in a big cake competition! A qualified jury will taste and evaluate the entries, and when the winners are named there will be cake for all, while evocative music is provided by the group Konvoj.
Judges: Anne Marie Helger, Adrian Lloyd Hughes, Marianne Stagetorn Kolos
Bake-off
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Sep 1, 2pm
No admission fee. No booking necessary
Entries must be delivered to Overgaden between 1:30pm - 2:00pm
Overgaden says: Bring a carrot and take your neighbour by the arm!
Overgaden invites you to a potluck dinner! Københavns Fødevarefællesskab (Copenhagen Food Community), Prags Have, and others will give talks while we chop and slice the vegetables we have brought and the visual artist and food enthusiast Jesper Aabille stirs the pots in his Mobile Kitchen.
Potluck Supper & Presentations
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Overgaden Neden Vandet 17, 1414 Copenhagen K
Aug 30, 5pm
No admission fee. No booking necessary
Bring bread and/or vegetables of your choice for soups/salads
L'âge d'or
Dalí and Buñuel’s surrealist extravaganza from 1930 is one of the major sources of inspiration for Matthew Barney’s Cremaster films – and a work cited in many experimental films through the history. Two sweetheats, played by Gaston Modot and Lya Lys, fight for their their love in an atmosphere of bourgeois suppression and a paranoia which quite often turns out to be well-founded. The Free Mason’s all-seeing eye symbol appears on a fake document which Modot’s character has manufactured to avoid arrest.
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 55
1123 Copenhagen K
Cremaster 3
Matthew Barney’s five Cremaster films have long ago gained cult status and are revered as major works of art. Cremaster 3 is the longest and last produced of the five, and it can easily be enjoyed as a singular work. It is a loose, weird story about artistic creation – starring Barney himself and referring to his own project – and human hubris. The story is set in the Chrysler building in New York, and it is filled with majestic, horrifying costumes, beautiful cars and mystical acts. The structure itself – as well as symbols littered across the film – refers to the Free masons and Masonic rites of passage.
Thanks to Complus Films
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 55
1123 Copenhagen K
Kano - An American and his Harem
Heart of Darkness lingers as a subtext under the true story of Vietnam veteran and war hero Victor Person. From 1969 and for 30 years onwards, Pearson settled in a secluded Philipino village and gathered his own harem of poor women around him. In 2001, however, Pearson was arrested and presented with multiple charges of rape. “His backstory,” wrote the film site Twitch in a rave review of the film, “could have been a Kubrick thriller. His present story, as embattled villain in a legal battle against all odds, could have been a clever Lumet court drama.”
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 55
1123 Copenhagen K
Canícula
“Among the year's loveliest nonfiction entries,” wrote Variety about this anthropological glimpse into the Totonac people’s century-old rituals during which four young men throw themselves off a tall, wooden pillar, spinning head down in dramatic circles. Today, the Totonac people are a Mexican minority on the threshold between tradition and modernity. “This tapestry of sights and sounds allows audiencess to take notice of a proud, long-ignored tribal group whose cultural roots remain firmly intact.”
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 55
1123 Copenhagen K
The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years Without Images
In 1974, the scandal-ridden Japanese director Masao Adachi exchanged his movie camera for a rifle and became part of a Lebanon-based pro-Palestinian terrorist cell called the Japanese Red Army. Simultaneously, May Shigenobu, being the daughter of the founder of the group, lived in exile and secrecy for 27 years. Their stories, intervowen with the one of her father, Fusaku Shigenobu, is told in this original, enticing art documentary. A quietly monumental tale of landscapes, celluloid – and images of childhood going up in smoke.
wednesday 22.08.12, 9:30pm + tuesday 28.08.12, kl. 4:45pm
Cinematheque
Gothersgade 55
1123 Copenhagen K
Zoo
An affecting, fascinating documentary, based primarily on reconstructions, exciting and bizarre enough to be called an arthouse crime film. A mysterious man is found half-dead on the doorstep of a hospital. Investigations point to a secluded farm house where men assemble to perform their shared interest: Having sex with animals. The detective aspect, however, is only one the film’s twisted appeals. We also get close to the zoofiles themselves, to the local townspeople – and to the media.
Alps
A small society, who calls themselves ’The Alps’, have as their mission to act as stand-ins for deceased people. Looking at times like an amateur theatre group, at times like a terrorist cell, they embrace their task with both diabolical and comical seriousness. But do they truly give conform to the relatives of the deceased? Do they work actively behind hospital walls to get new clients? Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (’Dogtooth’) poses acute, original questions in this black arthouse drama-comedy.
Manifest.AR
If you think that the world has become too predictable, then grab your smartphone and take part in the projects by the artist group Manifest.AR. You can then transform Copenhagen and the world into the place you want it to be. Who says that Christiansborg, the home of the Danish parliament, could not be pink, or that the buses could not be wandering camel caravans? In the project MyMirrorCity you can project a photo of yourself on to buildings in the city as a comment on our use of social media to communicate our identity.
Manifest.AR is an international artists’ collective using smartphone technologies to install virtual objects in the display when you point your phone at a certain place. The technology consists of a special type of app that uses GPS location systems or visual recognition, best known from QR codes. The technology is widely used by companies and organisations, like the tourist industry, that can add information and advertisement virtually to strategically important places. In contrast, Manifest.AR strive to critically utilise the options offered by this technology to alter our experience of public space, and thus the way we communicate.
If you are in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, for instance, the app in your smartphone will (so far without the censorship of the Chinese authorities) show you the famous tank-stopping student in the midst of the physical reality surrounding you. Point at Ellis Island in New York and the Statue of Liberty will have been deleted from the picture. If you point at a dollar bill, Twitter-messages from the Occupy movement will appear. While these virtual layers do not transform the physical surroundings, they do expand reality. And in step with the increasing accessibility of augmented reality technology, it is also becoming progressively more and more important in a political reality.
Manifest.AR is an international artists collective that create virtual actions in politically loaded locations, using digital technology (smartphones with a Layar app) to insert controversial monuments and messages. The group has also made unofficial, virtual interventions at MoMa, N.Y., and the biennials of Istanbul and Venice 2011.
Watch video interview with Manifest.AR
Exhibition: Conversations
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Workshop: Augmented Reality Workshop
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 25, 3pm
Read more
Lea Porsager (DK)
Lea Porsager’s complex work Group Perfection includes installation, performance and a book. The first part unfolds as a mute gesture in the form of seven perforated elements that indicate a stagnant idea of community.
The second part is a seance entitled They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rule and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see, originates in psychiatrist R. D. Laing’s book about inter-human relation, Knots, from 1970. With Laing’s quote as foundation, a seance is held where small objects with human voices play out a meeting – a perfomance – about visible or invisible constellations in a community.
The third part of the work consists of a book with the artist’s projects that deal with temporary communities. It asks questions about being creative together and the move away from a predominant solipsism into the uncertain, as a social cohesion entails. Lea Porsager explores the inherent dilemma of community with her multifaceted treatment of the theme: At one and the same time seeming to be the only thing we have and being a fundamentally difficult construction. The survey uses the schizophrenic, the occult and the spiritual as a way of questioning widespread, normative thinking.
Lea Porsager lives and works in Denmark. She was educated at The Royal Danish Art Acacdemy and at The Städelschule in Frankfurt. She investigates various occult and spiritual strategies / concepts in an attempt to promote "a space of non-violent madness and speculation". Porsager's artistic method combines video, performance, objects and photography in different ways. Porsager is currently exhibiting at dOCUMENTA (13) with the work Anatta Experiment.
Exhibition: Beyond Good and Evil
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Sep 30
Read more
Vernissage with book launch and seance
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Sep 30, 1pm-3:30pm
Carsten Nicolai (DE)
How is the urbanistic ideal doing 60 years after it was cast in concrete? The architect Le Corbusiers’s iconic, modern housing in Nantes, Unité d’ Habitation from 1955, also called Cité Radieuse – Radiant City– sets the stage for a film essay about the individual who adapts to a vertically organised social megastructure. In a contemplative mode, the film combines sequences of the corridors and apartments of the housing block and slowly pans over the module system that finds expression right down to the smallest details of the design: doors, windows, door handles and light switches. What do the collective thoughts behind the high-rise mean for the life of the individual in it today? Carsten Nicolai is interested in how notions of the collective, translated aesthetically and functionally into architecture, incorporate an utopian equality between people but also a standardisation of their daily lives.
Carsten Nicolai, born 1965 in Karl-Marx-Stadt, is part of an artist generation that works intensively in the transitional area between art and science. As a visual artist, Nicolai seeks to overcome the separation of the art forms and genres by trying to endeavor a holistic artistic approach. For several years now Carsten Nicolai has experimented with sound under the pseudonym Alva Noto to create his own code of signs, acoustic and visual symbols.
Watch video interview with Carsten Nicolai
Exhibition: Beyond Good and Evil
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Sep 30
Read more
Jananne Al-Ani (IR)
In the video installation A Loving Man, five women – Jananne Al-Ani herself, her mother and three sisters – tell and retell the story of an absent husband and father on the basis of their personal relations with him. In the form of a children’s memory game ”Mrs Brown went to town”, where the first participant says a sentence that the next repeats adding yet another sentence and so on, the story revolves, grows and shifts while the game is elevated into ritual. The theatrical situation, opening with the words ”A loving man” and concluding with ”He broke my heart”, is extremely staged but very dramatic. As the story is retold it becomes a joint echo and the banal is raised to the universally human. The work was commissioned by Imperial War Museum, London.
Jananne Al-Ani’s works have to do with relations, cohesion, memory and storytelling. She is preoccupied with memory as an entity that is both unstable and constant, where the same narratives change according to the context.
Jananne Al-Ani (b. 1966 in Kirkuk, Iraq), the daughter of an Iraqi father and Irish mother, lives and works in London. She came to Britain in 1980 and attended the Byam Shaw School of Art and received a Fine Art Diploma in 1986. She has exhibited world- wide and recently participated at the Venice Biennal in 2011 with the work Shadow Sites II.
Exhibition: Beyond Good and Evil
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Sep 30
Read more
Isaac Julien (GB)
With a combination of a ghost story and classical narrative techniques, Isaac Julien takes the audience along on the emigrant’s journey towards a better life. The film Better Life starts where all too many destinies end: an accident in Morecambe Bay, England, in 2004, when 23 Chinese cockle pickers drowned. With this as his point of departure, Julien explores the country that made the cockle pickers leave: a China where traditions and ancient myths meet a modern society changing very swiftly in pursuit of prosperity.
The film deals with existential phenomena as death and spirituality. The main characters are supernatural beings – ”lost souls” – who guide us through different scenes all of which have Shanghai as framework. We experience, for instance, Julien’s re-staging of legendary scenes from the city’s historical film industry. In the 1930s Shanghai was known as the Hollywood of the East, and the city produced famous film stars like Ruan Lingyu, who in Julien’s film is played by China’s greatest actress Maggie Cheung. The past and the present are intertwined in Shanghai as a manifestation of modern China. The film explores how the enormous upheavals in the country are changing the everyday communities and the way in which the Chinese perceive community – what may have made the cockle pickers cross a whole continent to get a better life.
Isaac Julien graduated from St. Martin’s School of Art in 1984. Lives and works in London. Isaac Julien’s work evolves around the usage of effects from different art genres such as film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture. By combining these he is breaking down the existing boundaries and creates new and visually powerful narratives. Especially migration is a theme which Julien has explored in his work. Isaac Julien has exhibited at Kunsthalle Zurich (2008), Metro Pictures (New York), Gwangju Biennale (2007) and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2009). He presented the work Ten Thousand Waves at Sydney Biennal in 2010.
Exhibition: Unfinished Journeys
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 24 - Nov 11
Read more
Damian Ortega (MX/DE)
At first glance you might think that Damián Ortega’s sculptures were minimalistic geometrical objects. But you would be wrong, because there is always a surprising tale behind their seemingly mute appearance. In Ortega’s works, the minimalistic objects mime the architecture of the metropolis or perform functionally, witch make it possible to interact with them. Ortega is not merely interested in the minimalistic form in itself, but also in the way in which the forms create architectonic structures that have an impact on our behaviour and way of life.
In The Housing Development Project it is only ingenuity that limits how one can use the installation’s big oblong containers. The artist’s intention is to create a flexible structure that generates opportunities for development and activity, alone or together with others. The playful, flexible openness in The Housing Development Project is counterbalanced by the sombre tones of another work, Incidental Configuration. In an astonishing way and with dramatic shadow effects, Ortega succeeds in describing the destitution and claustrophobia hidden in the ant-hill like structures of the metropolis. Just as architecture can create opportunities for community and development, its monotonous shapes can equally be an image of the shady sides of society.
Damián Ortega lives in Mexico City and Berlin. The use and deconstruction of everyday life often charged with political meaning and a sharp humor is the core of Ortega’s works. In what seems to be a simple language he tells complexe stories about social, political and economic issues. The work of Damián Ortega has been presented at among others Barbican Art Gallery, London in 2010 with the exhibition The Curve and in 2005 at Tate Modern, London, with The Uncertainty Principle. UNTITLED Project Series . Ortega celebrated his break through with the sculpture Cosmic Thing at Venice Biennial in 2002.
Watch video interview with Damián Ortega
Exhibition: Unfinished Journeys
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 24 - Nov 11
Read more
Pascale Marthine Tayou (CM/BE)
In PIK-NIK Afrodiziak... aphrozidiaque... afrosisiaque/COPENHAGEN Pascale Marthine Tayou has filled the courtyard with an explosion of brightly coloured flags from the 54 African nations recognised by the UN. Visitors can lounge in wooden furniture in this festive staging and experience the union of the traditional Danish Copenhagen courtyard and Tayou’s African expression. Tayou’s works are characterised by a spontaneous sensuousness and often deal with interchanges and cultural encounters.
The artist’s second contribution to the exhibition, Favela A, is a massive wall consisting of no less than 600 birdhouses that resemble the myriad of small sheds in slum districts. But where the residents in a slum often live in conditions that tie them to their home, the occupants of the birdhouses have completely different possibilities for moving around. ”The free bird” can live its dream anywhere when all borders are open. The work is based on experience that is representative of Tayou, who was born and raised in Cameroun but lives in a cosmopolitan artistic milieu in Europe. In his universe the cultural encounter is the opportunity of globalisation, but the downside is the difficult conditions for cohesion and community in a world without residency requirements. Tayou’s works stage the consolation of globalisation, and they stage a different agenda than the discussions of military and economic power.
Pascale Marthine Tayou lives in Ghent, Belgium. Pascale Marthine Tayou’s works deal with the question of globalization, migration and how cultures meet and merge. The idea of travelling – both the physical and the mental journey - is reflected in his works, which are deliberately fluid. Pascale Marthine Tayou has since his debut exhibited at Documenta 11 in 2002, and at the Venice Biennial in 2005 and 2009.
Watch video interview with Pascale Marthine Tayou
Exhibition: Unfinished Journeys
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 24 - Nov 11
Read more
Concert & Picnic: PIK NIK Afrodiziak (Pascale Marthine Tayou)
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 26, 5pm
Read more
Mohamed Bourouissa (FR)
Mohamed Bourouissa’s art deals with stereotypes, power relations and exchanges between people. The photo series Périphérique has the stigmatised Paris banlieues as the frame and describes the French-Arab and French-African environments’ alliances, conflicts and lawlessness. Bourouissa’s images show intense situations and everyday dramas, complemented by the artist’s feeling for sharp, rhythmic composition. It looks like photo journalism at first glance, but if one examines the pictures more closely one discovers their staged character.
When he was working on the photos, Bourouissa spent a long time in the company of the people he grew up with to study their lives. He involved them in the work of staging and finally composing the pictures. Sometimes they are reminiscent of great epic masterpieces, other times Bourouissa’s material is rougher as it is the participants who were responsible for documenting their own lives. In Légende we witness the situation closely when illegal cigarettes are sold at the Barbés metro station. Bourouissa has left it to the dealers, who are often illegal immigrants, to document the scarce dialog that takes place between them and their customers. The video gives a fleeting glimpse into a parallel world in the middle of the French society. The work Temps Mort is based on mobile phone photos and text messages from a correspondence between the artist and his friend when the friend was in prison. These videos create astonishment and curiosity and provide an excellent insight into worlds we seldom get close to.
Mohamed Bourouissa was educated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs and Sorbonne in Paris where he lives and works. He works with the staged photo and video art in his experiments with film recorded on his mobile phone camera. Bourouissa investigates social stereotypes and the interplay between authenticity and performance in how these stereotypes are being communicated.
Watch video interview with Mohamed Bourouissa
Exhibition: Conversations
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Jeppe Hein (DK)
During the ten days of the festival, Højbro Plads was transformed into an effervescent artistic playground and market square, focusing on common entertainment, play and creativity. And on transforming and changing something, together. Under the guidance of Jeppe Hein, as many as 25 Danish and international artists and many others contributed with sculptures, installations and a daily schedule of performances, morning-gymnastics, music, food-acrobatics, speeches, teaching and much more.
Jeppe Hein lives and works in Berlin. Jeppe Hein’s art centres around the spectator. His sculptures and installations occupy the space and invite the spectator to participate. Everyday public space objects like fountains and benches are stretched and bent, and brought to life by this interaction. The boarders between art and architecture are broken down and replaced by playful social space, where people meet and create the work by interacting.
Watch video interview with Jeppe Hein
ILOVIT
Højbro Plads
Aug 24 - Sep 2 10am-10pm
Read more
Jeanne Van Heeswijk (NL)
Over four afternoons, Jeanne van Heeswijk in collaboration with Louise Sidenius from Spruijt Printing House, local experts and everyone who would like to join in, will produce public signboards that comment on the financial savings measures taking place all over Europe. The open workshop will attempt to extract parts of public conversations about how we can be more inventive and sustainable in our way of life in order to make them visible in the public arena. Public Faculty, which has previously taken place in Macedonia, the Netherlands, Serbia and England, refers to Joseph Beuys’s epochmaking work ’Richtkräfte’, an installation with 100 blackboards created for public discussion. The idea is to engage in learning by means of exchanging knowledge in a certain locality. By visualising the discourses, the signs set a rethinking of the public arena in motion through collective cultural action. Driven by a belief in the connection between art, life and space, Jeanne van Heeswijk engages herself in local communities and involves the public in social projects with communication and change as the objective. The projects take place in the public space, which is explored, reshuffled and used as a platform for interaction and cultural production to provide new communities with the possibility of growing.
Jeanne van Heeswijk lives and works in Rotterdam. Jeanne van Heeswijk works extensively with ways to create social interaction between people in the public space. With a strong sense of social awareness and often in close collaboration with other artists, designers, architects, politicians and public citizens, Van Heeswijk develops and stimulates public spaces where people may meet and interact.
Watch video interview with Jeanne Van Heeswijk
Jeanne Van Heeswijk: Public Faculty No. 5
Workshop
Købmagergade 39 (by Løvstræde)
Aug. 25, 1pm-5pm
Aug. 26, 1pm-5pm
Aug. 27, 1pm-5pm
Aug. 28, 1pm-5pm
Read more
Raqs Media Collective (IN)
We are suddenly Lilliputians in a shadow figure collection of oversize books, among which are some H.C. Andersen-like silhouettes. In the city flyers are handed out urging us to immediately take creative action in the closest library by putting passages from our favourite books into other books. And late one evening there is a lecture about wisdom, alternative forms of knowledge and autodidactism. ”What does knowledge taste of and how can we share it?” Raqs Media Collective explore the relationship of eagerness to learn to knowledge, power, utterance and silence. With an emphasis on literature and knowledge as something that can be confused, mixed up, infected and transformed, the Indian collective propose different, more creative, original and personals ways of acquiring insight and expanding one’s horizon than what the established institutions have to offer. Knowledge cannot be isolated at authoritarian universities, knowledge does not produce intelligence; on the contrary, thought generates fresh knowledge. As an agent of discovery and change, the autodidact makes his or her world accessible and reachable. The flyer-action has the expressive title, The Robin Hood of Wisdom: Take (poetry) from the rich and give to the poor = We create all the poetic together. A tribute and an incentive to self-directed learning!
Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta live and work in New Delhi. Raqs Media Collective make versatile projects with a critical and political perspective. The group’s works often investigate globalisation and relations of power with a critical, non-western gaze. The Untold Intimacy of Digits (2011) shows an enlarged photo of the handprint of a Bengali peasant. The man was forced to press his hand against a piece of paper by the British as a way to identify him. RMC’s use of the picture functions as a postcolonial critique of the way those in power always try to force certain ideas of identity on individuals.
Watch video interview with Raqs Media Collective
Raqs Media Collective: How to Be an Artist by Night
Late Night Lecture
Fiolbiblioteket, Fiolstræde 1
Aug 27, 10pm-12(midnight)
Read more
The Primary Education of the Auto Didact & the Robin Hood of Wisdom
Copenhagen Main Library, Krystalgade 15
(in the window section to the left of the main entrance)
Joanna Rajkowska (PL)
A solemn procession moves through the town and the neon logo of the Order of Freemasons blazes in red. Is a new sect about to conquer Copenhagen? Is something about to happen? Is it a provocation? Joanna Rajkowska explores objectives and aesthetic instruments behind a private community with roots in European identity, which hide their activities while maintaining public visibility. The project throws light on borderlines and balances between publicity, privacy and secrecy: The Freemasons are not a secret community, but a community with secrets. The lodge of the Danish Order of Freemasons on Blegdamsvej is publicly recognisable, they have a website that is accessible and they announce their meetings, but the content of these meetings and rituals are kept secret and we do not really know what the members do. In this way they are less secret than companies who do not wish to publish their tax information. But precisely having an audience for their secretiveness makes the men-only-club fascinating and cult. Rajkowska works with the city as a place for groupings, confrontation and possible changes that depend on how we ourselves organise it and establish ourselves within it.
Joanna Rajkowska lives and works in London, Berlin and Warsaw. Joanna Rajkowska works with social spaces and the meetings between individuals that may potentially happen within the spaces. Her most famous work is Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue/Pozdrowienia z Alej Jerozolimskich (2002-2009), an artificial palm tree now permanently standing by the busy Aleje Jerozolimskie road in Warsaw. Rajkowska uses the public space as venue to expose social, political and historical conflicts. Rajkowska is currently showing two new video works at this year’s 7th Berlin Biennial.
Watch video interview with Joanna Rajkowska
Joanna Rajkowska: The Light of the Lodge
Performance-procession
The Royal Library
Aug 26, 11pm-1am
Aug 29, 11pm-1am
Read more
Marcello Maloberti (IT)
24 performers, each carrying a big porcelain tiger, travel through Copenhagen by bus and train and on foot like an enigmatic migration or a sectarian parade. The flamboyant tiger sculptures have aggressive colours and are exaggeratedly decorative, but as they wander through the city they also seem vulnerable. When they have reached their destination, the performers line the tigers up in a row. At Marcello Maloberti’s command, all the performers undress and remain naked while lifting the tigers up over their heads for a moment. At a new command, they let the tigers fall and smash to the ground. The violent action first echoes of the smashed fragments, after which there is silence. The noble, exotic ceramic figures have only their flamboyant, seemingly outer strength. They are unable to defend themselves, but in spite of their harmlessness, they are destroyed. The ritual plays on shock, terror, disaster and expulsion without any obvious political purpose, but on a foundation of strange comic effects and allegorical aesthetics that nonetheless involve doubt about how we as people can live with each other.
Marcello Maloberti lives and works in Milan. Marcello Maloberti’s works seem more like events and are created via interaction from the audience or volunteers who come together and perform the work. For Performa ’09 in New York, Maloberti presented the work The Ants Struggle on the Snow where 30 performers all carried objects of different shapes and sizes through the city, making them look like living sculptures. The work is characteristic for the artist, as Maloberti always uses the local space and its inhabitants as his inspirations so the works become site-specific and personal.
Watch video interview with Marcello Maloberti
Marcello Maloberti: Sommerfugle spiser bananer (The End)
Performance
Aug 24, 4:45pm-5pm
Amagertorv
Læs mere
Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet (les gens d’Uterpan) (FR)
A group of silent, unremarkable dancers dressed in soft everyday clothes walk around freely, mix with the audience, sit down, lie on the floor. They stare at each other and the audience in a neutral manner, without any direct intention. Or are they looking through the audience at something beyond the space, are they waiting for something? The dancers' presence is insistent and gives the audience the possibility to get quite close to their bodies and become part of their patterns of movement, without any barriers between spectator and performance. Les Gens d’Uterpan’s performance thus punctures the fixed format of performance art and is dissolved in the encounter with the audience, which can be intense or distanced according to how the visitors themselves react. At the same time the challenge of the encounter shifts the focus back onto the space we are in. As suggested by the X in X-Event, absolutely anything can be put into the X’s place. The event does not contain anything definite, the performance has started and the dancers have choreography, but we do not know in advance what will be put into the framework. This means that no two members of the audience will have the same experience. Les Gens d’Uterpan are choreographers Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet, who explore the relationship between dance and pictorial art.
Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet (les gens d’Uterpan) live and work in Paris. les gens d’Uterpan work with dance and the body and its representation. Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet are both trained choreographers. For years they have examined and challenged the borders between visual art, dance and performance. Using the body and its representation as a point of departure, the role of the audience, the dancer and the dance and performance itself are expanded and presented in new ways.
Watch video interview with Franck Apertet
Performances
Aug 25, 3pm
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Read more
Aug 26, 3pm
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Read more
Aug 27, 3pm
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Read more
Aug 28, 4pm
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Read more
Aug 29, 3pm
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Read more
Aug 30, 3pm
Højbro Plads
Read more
Yuan Gong (CN)
A fragrant mist forces itself out between the arches in the passage under Regensen, the student residence at the Round Tower on Købmagergade. The mist hangs in the air about a metre above the ground, fills the whole passage, swallows those who move into it and disturbs the otherwise busy traffic on the pedestrian street. In traditional Chinese culture Qi, which directly translated means spirit, air or steam, but can also be described as vital force or energy, is what keeps every living thing alive. Following an eight-month research trip to Tibet, Yuan Gong has taken on Qi as a metaphor for human existence and devoted his work to investigating and expressing this symbol of life and death. It is an important point for Yuan Gong that the cosmic spirit cannot be captured statically or visually but must be experienced with all the senses and in all its dynamism. Installed in the historical context, the fleeting poetical sculpture leads the thoughts also to a mysterious, steaming Copenhagen, where there is something in the wind, there is a ground mist, concealed events and alchemistic transformations are hidden in cellars, recesses and behind locked doors, at the same time as on the more universal level it refers to the haze, clouds, heavens and freedom of the salt of the earth.
Yuan Gong lives and works in Beijing. Yuan Gong works with sculpture, drawing and installation but is primarily known for a series of works, where a scented fog fills the space, surrounding the spectator. In the past Gong has presented his works, among other places, at the Tina B festival in Prag, with the work Fly Release (2010), and at the Venice Biennale in 2009, with the work Empty Incence.
Yuan Gong: Close to Heaven
Performance
Aug 25, 5pm-6pm
Regensens Passage (by Rundetårn)
Read more
Watch video of Close to Heaven
Yto Barrada (MA/FR)
The focal point of Yto Barrada’s work is her hometown, Tangier in Morocco. Here the urban landscape has undergone enormous changes over the last few decades due to building speculation. With an observing documentary view, mixed with meditative visual poetry, Barrada’s video- and photo installations investigate the way people live their daily lives in Tangier. Her art may be regarded as an activist countermeasure to the commercial agenda that controls the development of the city. In Barrada’s video installation Playground we follow life on a run-down playground in Tangier that, in spite of its poor state, is popular with the residents of the area. Playground provides insight into overlooked urban life that exists in the periphery and independent of speculative building projects. Here Barrada is accentuating the perspectives inherent in using what is there, and in the incidentally occurring community between locals at the playground. The gap between speculative visions and objective reality in today’s big cities is a consistent theme also present in A Modest Proposal to Modernize Morocco and Maximize Its Resources and Efficiency. The 15 posters offer a humorous description of Tangier’s present situation. The tree appears in the posters, especially the palm tree, as a recurring motif in Barrada’s work. It is an ambiguous metaphor for both resistance and strength, but also a symbol of the tourist industry – an industry that has very much left its mark on Tangier, with its dreams of creating a new Costa del Sol.
Born in Paris and educated in Tangier. Studied at the International Centre of Photography, New York. Lives in Paris and Tangier.
The works of Yto Barrada contains a mixture of poetry and politics. In her photos and films she portraits the unstable and insecure life at the border region in Africa, where refugees are trying to cross the Gibraltar Strait in an attempt to get to Europe. Her works express the hope and dreams of a better life.
Yto Barrada has recently exhibited at Queens Museum of Art, New York, 2009, TARJAMA/TRANSLATION, Fowler Museum at UCLA(Los Angeles), 2009, CONTINENTAL RIFTS, og MoMA (San Francisco og New York), 2008-2009. In 2006 she received the Ellen AuerBach Price in Berlin.
Exhibition: Unfinished Journeys
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 24 - Nov 11
Read more
Kimsooja (KR)
A mountain of richly coloured bundles tumbles down from the carrier of a Chinese freight bicycle. They halt the bike’s momentum and cause its front wheel to rear up with their weight. The burdensome, and almost ambivalent, movement reflects a consistent track in the works of Korean artist Kimsooja. Due to her father’s job, Kimsooja grew up as a modern nomad with a family that repeatedly settled down in new places. Her childhood was characterised by changing, constant breaking-up and by new acquaintances, and therefore was full of longing and home-sickness.
A recurring element in Kimsooja’s works are the colourful Korean cloths, bottaris, that envelope the bundles of clothes. The bottaris takes part in many different contexts in Korea, as both in the important events in life, but also in everyday existence when personal property is to be packed. Bottaris represent something homely because they are a part of the tradition, but also because they are associated with change, since bottaris often appear when something changes – either with everyday chores, when something has to be moved, or with the big transitions in life, such as when they play a part in wedding rituals. The cloths are linked with perpetual change but also with cultural anchorage. In this way the traditional Korean cloths are a metaphor for the modern world’s fundamental conditions: the omnipresent demand for mobility and the longing for affiliation and points of orientation that remain constant.
Master of fine Art, Hang-IK University, Seoul. Lives and works in New York, Paris and Seoul.
The Korean artist Kimsooja works with performance, installation and video. A material which she often uses is the bottari - a traditional Korean bed cloth made out of colourful textiles. She displays the symbolic meaning as well as the aesthetic of the textiles. Detached from a utilitarian context they become universal symbols of life itself.
Kimsooja has among others exhibited at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2009); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2008); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2006) and Venice Biennial (2001, 2005, 2007). In 2008 she showed her spectacular work Mumbai: A Laundry Field at Continua Gallery, Beijing.
Exhibition: Unfinished Journeys
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 24 - Nov 11
Read more
Hesselholdt & Mejlvang (DK)
Sofie Hesselholdt & Vibeke Mejlvang has apparently invited us to a party. Ribbons, flags and pleated decorations fill the room with red, white and black colours as if it were a special national occasion that was to be celebrated. But the stage is empty, and like guests who have arrived too late the audience is left with the remains – among them a lion enthroned in the middle of the room.
Danish artist duo Hesselholdt & Mejlvang works with scenographic installations characterised by aesthetic and political acuity. They combine recognisable symbols and objects from the culture around us – for example, the flag and the pentagram with their identifiable but ambiguous references. One also often meets furniture and fittings in the scenographies that the artists have taken out of the safe framework of the home. The occult, bleak atmosphere in Homeland Security characterises a recurring theme of national self-understanding. What in many other contexts is perceived as pleasant or festive, in the work of the artist duo takes a threatening, unapproachable twist that questions the way nationality is often practiced.
Sofie Hesselholdt and Vibeke Mejlvang both have graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. They live and work in Copenhagen.
The Danish art duo, Hesselholdt & Mejlvang, collaborate on their art works, which cover installations, sculptures, ready-mades and the rearrangement of found objects. In center of their works is the scenic room/tableau as a search to understand the human activity.
Recently Hesselholdt & Mejlvang has exhibited at Vaxjö Kunsthal in 2011 in collaboration with Svend Allan-Sørensen with Mörkersyn , at Gallery 21 in Malmoe with the exhibition Excursion in pitch-darkness, and the group exhibition ENTER II at Kunsthallen Brandt in Odense, Denmark.
Watch video interview with Hesselholdt & Mejlvang
Exhibition: Unfinished Journeys
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 24 - Nov 11
Read more
Roskilde Festival
Two artists from the Copenhagen Art Festival’s learning and experience programme, Anja Franke and Berit Nørgaard, will each present a project at this year’s Roskilde Festival (July 5th-8th, 2012). The projects will take the form of social platforms for immersion, exchange, and interaction. In Anja Franke’s porcelain painting workshop ’Tea Bar WASTE SERVICE’, guests are invited to decorate second-hand tea sets with a unique pattern designed by Franke. The finished tea sets will join hundreds of other Franke tea sets from previous performances to form a global tea set.
’ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I AM THINKING’ is the title of Berit Nørgaard’s book workshop. Festival guests will be invited to produce two blank notebooks: one to keep and record festival memories and the other to give to a stranger to record theirs
Join the ’Tea Bar WASTE SERVICE’ workshop in the Social Zone.
Friday, July 6, 12-2 PM
Saturday, July 7, 12-2 PM
Sunday, July 8, 12-2 PM
Join the ’ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I AM THINKING’ workshop in the Social Zone.
Friday, July 6, 2-4 PM
Kutlug Ataman (TR)
Kutlug Ataman’s video installation Beggars shows one of those moments that many of us try to avoid: eye contact with a beggar on the street. The video projections show recordings of a social group that is outside the usual, larger communities. The shots focus on different variations of the gestures and expressions one experiences when beggars appeal for help. A silent form of communication that arouses feeling of pity, guilt, shame, regret or fear and that makes most of us lower our eyes.
In Ataman’s previous videos people in specific or marginalized life situations tell us in immersive way about their lives. It is the opposite in Beggars where we do not learn anything about the beggars’ background, but instead get the opportunity to closely study behaviour and gestures in these everyday dramas. We can observe what we normally want to shut our eyes to. But in this way the artist places his audience in an ambiguous situation that can cause one to question the entire situation and our role as voyeurs. Have the videos been staged or are they genuine, are these real beggars or are they actors, and why is it so difficult to establish even a minimal connection with a beggar through a brief exhange of words or even a gaze?
Educated as a film director and visual artist, Ataman lives and works in London and Istanbul. One of Turkey’ s most prominent contemporary artists, his films combine a documentary style with a general human interest. They often portray individuals living on the fringes of society and investigate how they seek to express their identity. With the individual at the centre, his works are reflections on society in relation to social identities and power structures.
Exhibition: Conversations
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
J&K / Janne Schäfer & Kristine Agergaard (DE/DK)
In a colourful, sensual mixture of performance and installation, Storkespringvandet is transformed into a sensual bath lounge, nettles into healing nectar, donkey manure into gold and Amagertorv into a camp. The four alchemistic scenes of the session look like living tableaux of a life cycle. Amagertorv is transformed to an organic, magical space where the beautiful, the luxurious and the heavenly are linked with the ugly, dirty and earthly in a ritual process that sweep props and symbols along with it in a theatrical game that cause cracks to show in fixed identities. The work is rounded off at night when the square is converted into a mosaic of colourful blankets and rugs taken over by people who sleep and hang out, and it seems to become an allegory of the beginning or end of civilisation. By means of staged characters and costumes, the artists act as the audience’s guides on the journey through the eccentric, alternative community. German-Danish artist duo J&K, Janne Schäfer and Kristine Agergaard, examine the creative relationship between fiction and reality. The Community Cycle, forming a striking contrast to the pedestrian street where the performance takes place, simultaneously celebrates the public space as a possible location for trying out ideas and actions on all of us as participants in the production of culture and ceremonies.
J&K are Janne Schäfer and Kristine Agergaard. They live and work in Copenhagen and Berlin. J&K use performance, installation and social intervention to investigate how reality and identity is perceived and constructed. The audience is led through theatrical, absurd, funny and colourful universes where cultural, religious and social references are mixed to create new meanings. J&K use the process of the rituals as a way to make the audience rethink their own understanding of reality and identity, and by doing so invite the audience to play and transform.
J&K: The Community Cycle - Birth, Life, Death and Afterlife
Watch video interview with J&K
Performance in 4 Parts
Amagertorv
Read more
The Community Cycle. Birth - Transforming Water into Water
Aug 26, 10am-12(noon)
Watch video
The Community Cycle. Life - Transforming Poison into Nectar
Aug 27, 1pm-4pm
Watch video
The Community Cycle. Death - Transforming Shit into Gold
Aug 29, 8pm-11pm
Watch video
The Community Cycle. Afterlife - Transforming Space into Space
Aug 30, 11pm-4am
Watch video
Heike Mutter & Ulrich Genth (DE)
Heike Mutter & Ulrich Genth work with versatile social projects - both institutionally and in the public space. In 2008 the duo made a project in collaboration with sewer workers in Munich. Interviews, stories and personal experiences from abound 80 workers were collected in an allegorical, Hieronymus Bosch inspired painting. The painting itself was a gift for the participating workers, but sections of it was displayed in the public space on huge billboards around the city. The individual experiences of the workers working underground were thus shared with the whole city. Heike Mutter & Ulrich Genth live and work in Hamburg.
Latifa Echakhch (FR/MA)
Fantasia consists of a group of irregularly placed flagless flagpoles that tip and point in all directions, intersect and cross over each other. The work can be seen in the residential area of Nyboder. Punctuating the neat rows of flags in all colours, which often decorate international organisations and congresses, this stark national symbol is deprived of its gravity and pathos, becoming harmless and comical. At the same time the work reminds us of our own conventional perceptions of the things we are surrounded with and by which we define ourselves. But with a few displacements objects can be dislodged from their cultural significance, liberating our refined, formal demeanour. Latifa Echakhch examines nationality, religion and culture. She deconstructs well-known everyday cultural objects and places them in new contexts that divulge their hollowness. The frequently stereotypical significance that we automatically ascribe to objects is exposed and distorted, pointing to our own role in maintaining – or violating – things as they are. One thing can easily become something else.
Latifah Echakhch was born in Morocco, and lives and works in Paris. She uses her own cultural identity as the basis for her critical studies of nationality, religion and culture. Familiar cultural objects such as Moroccan tea glasses and prayer mats are placed in a new context thereby distorting and deconstructing their original meaning. The stereotyped meanings that are automatically read into the objects are thus displayed and distorted. The work Fantasia was shown at the Venice Biennal in 2011.
Exhibition: Beyond Good and Evil
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Sep 30
Read more
Arturas Raila (LT)
Lithuanian artist Arturas Railas’s Power of Earth, Mapping Copenhagen geoenergy map of Copenhagen, integrating sculpture, photography and performance, takes us on a journey into subculture’s occult city. The installation was devised in cooperation with two experts who mapped spaces by measuring energy lines on the basis of heathen traditions. They charted the city during a five-day walk around Copenhagen, one of them using copper rods as instruments while the other sensed magnetic currents and fields in the city. The geoenergy map, which covers most of the floor in the exhibition room, creates a new space in the city, and visitors are encouraged to re-experience their immediate environment on the basis of parameters that cannot be seen. Collaborating with social groups outside of ordinary mainstream culture, Arturas Raila makes works critical of national identity and other institutions that promote the uniform. The installation disturbs our relation to our surroundings by offering another understanding of community in Copenhagen that does not claim that we all ”share the city”. On the contrary, Arturas Railas’s project draws an esoteric outsider group and its urban perspective into the light and refers to their coexistence with the others, other and otherness that make up the city.
Arturas Raila works and lives in Vilnius, Lithuania. He teaches at the Photographic and Media Institute at Vilnius Art Academy.
In his working process Raila often collaborate with specific social groups or subcultures to produce works that are part of a discourse that is critical of institutions and national identity.
Watch video interview with Arturas Raila
Exhibition: Beyond Good and Evil
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Sep 30
Read more
Søren Thilo Funder (DK)
Søren Thilo Funder’s video installation Sal Paradise about experimental mini-communities in Mexico explores alternatives to the ordinary, modern way of living. The work interweaves two novels in an authentic frame. In one of them, Walden Two, a utopian science fiction novel from 1949 by behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner, the author’s alter ego Professor Burris visits the eerily perfect mini-community Walden Two. In the 1970s this dreamt-up community formed the model for the realisation of several self-organised communities, one of which was Los Horcones in the Mexican desert. In Sal Paradise we revisit the real Los Horcones 40 years later. The film mixes the genuine documentary narrative from present-day Walden Two with a fictional story of a new Professor Burris who is searching for the original Walden Two but only finds its sad remains.
The second novel is Jack Kerouac’s beat classic On the Road, published in 1957. The main character, the adventurous Sal Paradise, functions as the alter ego of the main character in Søren Thilo Funder’s film – a young man who drives around in Mexico City’s swarm, from one day’s work for another. A third character plays an important role in the work, Marciel Beltran, who appears as a ghost and tells about his own death in the Tlatelolco massacre, which took place in Mexico City in 1968. Funder’s complex fictions staged in real, identifiable places demonstrate his interest in paradoxes in modern society, where a community rapidly can end up with exclusion.
Søren Thilo Funder studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2002-2008), The School of Art and Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago (2006-2007) and at The European Film College (2000-2001). He lives and works in Copenhagen. Funder has recently amongst other things participated in RENCONTRES À BEYROUTH AT BEIRUT ART CENTER and at OSLO SCREEN FESTIVAL. At the moment he is exhibiting at EVA INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL OF VISUAL ART – “AFTER THE FUTURE” in Ireland.
Watch video interview with Søren Thilo Funder
Exhibition: Beyond Good and Evil
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Sep 30
Read more
Filmscreening: El Grito
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 29, 7pm
Read more
Ann Lislegaard (NO/DK)
Two big, animated owls with shining eyes conduct an incoherent monologue and perform a strange kind of dance, flapping their wings. Drones vibrate in the background. The relation between the human being and the machine and memory and empathy as what presumably separates the two, is twisted and turned in Ann Lislegaard’s spacious installation. Keeping in mind the TV series Twin Peaks’ unsettling ”The owls are not what they seem”, which advises one not to trust the appearance of anyone or anything, we do not know what to expect of Lislegaard’s sombre oracle-owls. The installation was inspired by Philip K. Dick’s post-apocalyptic novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the book behind the film Blade Runner) which describes a near, dystopian future. Here the world, its population and animals are in a bad state, and androids can only be distinguished from humans because of their lack of empathy. The novel questions our ideas about origin and experience and illustrates the way in which new rules can arise in a society where the old rules no longer apply. Ann Lislegaard is interested in the speculative and subversive potential of the unknown futures found in science fiction. Here anything can happen, and she makes use of this genre to shed light on what actually happens around and between us.
Norwegian born Danish artist, Ann Lislegaard, trained at the Copenhagen Academy of Fine Arts 1988-93, today lives and works in Copenhagen and New York. Since 2004 she has worked as a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
Ann Lislegaard is interested in the concept of perception and examines how we experience the surrounding world and its structures. Much of her work is based upon common references in literature and Lislegaard is preoccupied with depictions of reality in iconic science fiction works.
Exhibition: Beyond Good and Evil
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Sep 30
Read more
INVISIBLE PLAYGROUND (DE)
Since 2009 the collective Invisible Playground has made use of the city as a stage for games and competitions with the audience as participants. The group, which consists of games developers, theatre people, artists, musicians and professionals, stage place-specific, interactive games that are used to explore the city’s spaces and infrastructure and the connections between them in 1:1. The games make use of sport, theatre, role play and computer games and props, but in a live version that sends the participants on trips down steps and stairs and up in lifts through the city’s streets, underground, busses and shopping centres to carry out certain missions and reach the goal without ”dying” along the way. On the occasion of the Copenhagen Art Festival, Invisible Playground invites the public to a Copenhagen Game Tour, where participants can try four different games while moving through the Copenhagen city centre. The games make the participants aware of how the space is formed, how we navigate within it, and the influence we have – or do not have – on it. One suddenly re-experiences the city from the perspective of the child’s universe, feels frightened or excited, threatened or liberated depending on random urban situations. The rules of the game make one change one’s behaviour in accustomed surroundings and sharpen our relation to the places in which we live and which we use. The project by Invisible Playground is realised in collaboration with DAC – The Danish Architecture Centre.
Invisible Playground works with site-specific and interactive games. The group explores the social mechanics, technical infrastructures, places and non-places of cities by installing experience systems on top of them. Developed at the intersection of site specific theatre and transmedia gameplay, these systems grant participants entry onto the invisible playgrounds they walk across every day without noticing. Invisible Playground is based in Berlin.
Watch video interview with Invisible Playground
Invisible Playground: The Copenhagen Game Tour
Performance, games
Storkespringvandet, Amagertorv
Aug 26, 2pm-5pm
Aug 27, 4pm-7pm
Read more
GEORG WECKWERTH (DE)
Georg Weckwerth works both as artist and curator. He works with various different media such as film, video, photography, sound and theatre. Weckwerth lives and works in Vienna and Berlin.
Watch video interview with Georg Weckwerth
LISTEN TO YOUR CITY — LISTENING TO ART: A TOWER FULL OF SOUNDS ETC.*
Curated by Georg Weckwerth (DE)
Aug 25 – Sep 2, 10am-8pm
Thereafter SAT+SUN 12(noon)-5pm, until Nov 4.
Location: Knippelsbro
The south tower, and outdoors on the bridge
Read more
Otto Karvonen (FI)
In the middle of the flow of busy shoppers on Strøget in Copenhagen two uniformed people pop up. They look like border guards and carry a large metal fence around. Shortly after another fence pops up, carried by two persons in the same uniforms, and shortly thereafter a third fence. The uniformed people moving in between the passersby, put up fences, so the flow of people divide themselves into temporary groupings. The guards turn around, go back and forth, put fences together, split up again, apparently controlled by random choreography. Finnish artist Otto Karvonen works with performative actions and temporary sculptural installations. His projects intervene with everyday situations in urban spaces and alter our experience of them.
Karvonen’s new performance project The Quest for a Border, takes place on the city’s busiest pedestrian street. Otto Karvonen finds his inspiration in the idea of borders and how they are constantly renegotiated between individuals, groups and nations: “There is always a search for a boundary, no matter how pointless or unproductive it may be.” His works often put focus on how we through our language describe and define various groups in our society, and how words can sometimes have the same function as the “fence” that divides up communities.
A related theme unfolds in his humorous project Public Space Occupation Kit, consisting of a bag with four traffic cones, a roll of barrier tape and a folding chair that you can take with you out in the city. With this you can shield a temporary private zone to yourself in the middle of the public space.
Karvonen was educated at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. He works mainly with temporary performative interventions and installations in public space, often adding a humorous element, as in his road sign with the text ”Keep Crossing Fingers”: the official meets the personal.
Watch video interview with Otto Karvonen
Exhibition: Conversations
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Performance
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Place: Amager Torv
Aug 25, 1pm
Read more
Yorgos Sapountzis (GR)
On the ocassion of Copenhagen Art Festival Overgaden presents a solo exhibition by the Greek artist Yorgos Sapountzis. Sapountzis creates a colourful total installation specifically for Overgaden’s exhibition spaces. Sapountzis examines the political, ideological and cultural mechanisms that underlie the construction of public monuments, and especially our relationship with them today. By highlighting the monuments’ physical presence here and now, rather than the historical context in which they are embedded, he challenges the notion of a static collective memory.
Yorgos Sapountzis is educated from the School of Fine Arts in Athens and the University of the Arts in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin, 2011, Simone Subal Gallery, New York, 2011, Ursula Blickle Foundation, Kraichtal, 2012 (current), and Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster (opening June 2012). Yorgos Sapountzis is based in Berlin.
Exhibition - Yorgos Sapountzis: Deus ex machina
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Performance
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Place: at Stærekassen, Det Kongelige Teater
Aug 28, 10pm
Read more
Finissage: Eating and Reading
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Oct 20, 5:30pm
Read more
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (MX/CA)
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is renowned world-wide for his spectacular interactive installations. One of his most recent, the sound and light installation Voice Array, can be experienced at the exhibition. The experience is activated when the participant speaks into an intercom. The voice is translated into flashes of light that flare up and create a unique pattern. Then a choir of voices and light is experienced from earlier recordings by other visitors. Finally, only one single voice is heard, loud and clear. This final voice is heard for the last time because the artist’s design has space for a maximum of 288 recordings, meaning that the oldest recording must be deleted to make way for the newest. Just as stimulating Lozano-Hemmer’s work is, equally ambiguous and critical is it when a system quantifies the individual’s voice and deletes when there is no more space. The work’s anonymous, dissociated voices allude to the relations we create together, through our communication, when it is mediated by electronical systems.
Working in the cross field of interactive installation, architecture and performance art, Lozano-Hemmer is mainly interested in creating space for public participation and interaction, using computer technology and surveillance. Represented Mexico at the Venice Biennale 2007; later shown at biennials in Sydney, Liverpool, Shanghai, Istanbul, Seoul and New Orleans.
Watch video interview with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Exhibition: Conversations
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Lise Harlev (DK)
The tower of Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, looks different these days. It has a message for us. If you walk around it, you will see that a series of letters on all four sides together form the sentence, ”The moment you read these words, they are no longer mine, but your words.”
The artist Lise Harlev is known for her work with statements that appear to act personally but often contain a truth that is universal and inevitable. The personal content contrasts with the form of communication, which has a public character in shape of different types of visual graphics where the words often deal with situations and contexts we recognize from our everyday lives.
The statement on the tower of Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center emphasises a self-evident premise applying to all communication, namely that words pass from senders to receivers and with the receivers always making sense of the message in their own ways. The statement seems generous: These words are yours. However, there is an added ambivalence due to the elevated placing on the church tower, perhaps alluding to declarations or injunctions issued by the monarchy or the church in the past, or to propaganda or mass communication spreading through the city like a virus.
Where the statement on the tower has an authoritative, universally valid undertone, there is in contrast a focus on individual doubt and the way we relate in direct or unspoken ways to our surrounding community in Harlev’s earlier work of art entitled I don’t always agree, on show inside the art center. Harlev uses traditional demonstration placards here - not as mouthpieces for political views, but for an undercurrent of thoughts about voicing one’s opinion and taking part in a demonstration. Lise Harlev’s awkward truths find their mark when it comes to commonplaces that are taboo or neglected basic terms in people’s way of living together. Like a kind of artistic anthropologist, she turns the community’s conventions inside out.
Educated at Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2002, Harlev addresses i.a. identity and nationality in works that graphicallly echo public space formats, e.g. posters and signs. Mixing subjective statements with signs, she creates tension between the layout and the subjective statement.
Watch video interview with Lise Harlev
Exhibition: Conversations
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Katarzyna Kozyra (PL)
The film Summertale is a grotesque, enigmatic retelling of the Grimm brothers’ classic fairytale Snow White. In addition to the artist in the main role as a Snow White-like figure, the film features a quintet of female dwarves, a drag queen named Gloria Viagra and the foppish opera singer Maestro.
The dwarves live a harmonious life in idyllic surroundings until Snow White and her two androgynous friends grow up out of some toadstools in the middle of the dwarves’ neat, well-tended garden. The three odd guests are welcomed, but the good atmosphere comes to an abrupt halt when their behaviour becomes insufferable for their hosts. A ferocious ending puts the finishing touch to this grotesque story that takes the fairytale as form back to its, often violent, roots.
Kozyra uses the concept of the fairytale as a narrative form in which most Europeans can recognise the structure of the story as well as its stereotype figures. But by using grotesque, exaggerated situations and characters she questions the recognisable and predictable. The film investigates the limits of community, how far our tolerance ranges and the role of art as a confounding factor.
Video and performance artist Katarzyna Kozyra’s works address existential problems of cultural taboos, social behaviour and stereotypes. In these Kozyra plays with the relationship between the grotesque and the perfect in odd universes of midgets and herma-phrodites. Kozyra was educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and lives and works in Warsaw and Berlin.
Watch video interview with Katarzyna Kozyra
Exhibition: Conversations
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Artist Talk
Sep 6, 5pm
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Dias & Riedweg
The individual’s voice and the way we react in the public space form the focal point of Dias & Riedweg’s video art project Throw. The video shows what happened in 2004 when the artists offered the citizens of Helsinki the opportunity to throw things at a glass plate standing in front of their camera. There are no explanations when eggs, watches, stones and all sorts of objects are flung at the camera. And the personal ”street revolt” seems even more enigmatic because the artists have edited the recordings together with photos from archives of earlier de- monstrations in Helsinki. Our ability and methods to call out to society are scrutinised by Dias & Riedweg.
The images from Throw also form part of Moving Truck, which has been shown several places in the world and has now reached Copenhagen. Throw is projected onto the back of a moving truck that drives around the city streets. In every city where the moving truck project has been realised, the reactions to the video are shot and then screened on the back of the moving truck in the next city. This means that in Moving Truck we do not only meet the demonstrating citizens of Helsinki; we do also witness how people other places in the world have reacted to the moving images of street revolt in the Finnish capital. By staging the context of the reactions in this way, Dias & Riedweg explore the power of dissident utterances and the way they are perceived in different public spaces the world over.
As a comment on the individual’s power (or lack of power), the public can also try steering a remote controlled miniature version of the truck in the exhibition at Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center.
Watch video interview with Dias & Riedweg
Exhibition: Conversations
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 24 - Oct 21
Read more
Street action: Moving Truck
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Place: Højbro Plads
Aug 24, 9pm
Read more
Press meeting
Participating Artists
Photo: Alba Gry Nybo
Magnús Logi Kristinsson
Magnús Logi Kristinsson works with a subtle and poetic presence, both the body’s presence in space and his own in relation to the audience.
In extension of his performance during the winter festival Wondercool, Icelandic artist Magnús Logi Kristinsson continues his performance series with music stands. In February Kristinsson literally placed himself on statues and church towers above the hurly-burly of the city. This time he takes his stand right in the middle of the throng in Amagertorv on six afternoons, and apart from some empty music stands placed around him, he becomes part of the city and the general public. The first day he is enclosed by 10 music stands, and from here on the number of stands grow until 40 on the last day of the performance. One gets the impression that Kristinsson is about to play some music, but instead he stands motionless. The action never happens, the climax fails to appear, nobody applauds, and nothing happens, at any rate something other than what is expected. Except for the growing numbers of music stands. On a sunny day he looks like a soloist about to gather his orchestra, and on a rainy day a soloist abandoned by the orchestra. In Kristinsson’s work performance becomes antiperformance, it is the audience who act, the surrounding world becomes the place where something takes place, and what is left is the artist’s body and our own, and the poetry of everyday life has to fill out the minimal, eventless performance. Magnús Logi Kristinsson works with a subtle and poetic presence, both the body’s presence in space and his own in relation to the audience.
Watch video interview with Magnús Logi Kristinsson
Magnús Logi Kristinsson: In a quiet spiral on a busy street
Performance in 6 parts
Amagertorv
Aug 25, 11am-2pm
Aug 26, 2pm-5pm
Aug 28, 2pm-5pm
Aug 29, 2pm-5pm
Aug 31, 2pm-5pm
Sep 1, 2pm-5pm
Read more
Otto Karvonen (FI)
Otto Karvonens Urban Space Occupation Kit makes it possible to mark and occupy a small space in public space. The kit contains traffic cones, marking tape, a folding chair and a bag to carry it all in. By using the kit any public space can be occupied and transformed into a temporary peaceful retreat seperated from public space or a performative stage where the user of the kit can perform and interact with the passer-by. The Urban Space Occupation Kit is a rebellious private takeover of common urban space. Who defines how we are supposed to act in public space? Copenhagen Art Festival’s activities in February form part of the Wondercool programme, a winter festival with the participation of several Copenhagen based festivals, organised by Wonderful Copenhagen. Read more at: www.wondercoolcopenhagen.dk.
Photo: Michael Hansen
Read more about the Performance Pogramme which Copenhagen Art Festival presents at Wondercool
Read more about: Copenhagen Art Festival
Søren Thilo Funder (DK)
On the outskirts of the city, the townsfolk are gathered to expel the citizen and bandit Friedlos, performing the traditional heathen ritual of banish- ment. Modern society’s regression towards rhetoric’s and ethics analogous to those of the Wild West, witch-hunts and tribal community, is on display in the banishment of the bandit. Friedlos (Aka The Bandit Wolf-Man) can be seen at the following venues from 9 - 26 February 2012: Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art and Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, BLACK POP Contemporary Art Gallery at Paludan Bogcafé, at Hotel Fox, The Black Diamond and Props Coffee Shop in Copenhagen.
Still: Søren Thilo Funder
Read more about the Film Programme which Copenhagen Art Festival presents at Wondercool
Read more about: Copenhagen Art Festival
WOOLOO (DK)
The artists’ group Wooloo, Martin Rosengaard and Sixten Kai Nielsen, work with a multi-branched, often involving and politicised practice that exaggerates situations with a view to challenging our self-perception, social codes and relations with one another.
An over-dimensioned candy vending machine stands in the courtyard at Charlottenborg, where one can buy a small ball for twenty kroner. The eatable ball in the machine contains real hair – delicately processed into delicious candy – from Danish financiers and property speculators who have earned fortunes from their involvement in the financial crisis. The work refers to the complex processes that have deprived the community of billions and made private individuals into society’s winners. With reference to cannibalistic rituals where the person eating wishes to take over the enemy’s strength, Bonus Balls may be viewed as resistance towards the capitalist system. But while eating parts of individuals who have eaten from the public chest at first might look like revenge, the ritual might rather represent our resistless co-existence with those who plunder our society. Neither the work nor those who pay to eat from it create any real resistance to capitalism, but rather incorporate the consumer more closely in the logic of the market. Bonus Balls examines the distance between our idea of human community and the reality of the model of society with its lack of solidarity.
Bonus Balls
Charlottenborg, Gården
Aug 24-Nov 15
About Bonus Balls
Vladimir Tomic (BIH/DK)
In Vladimir Tomić’s film Unfinished Journeys we follow Niels, who is half Danish and half Inuit. The focal point is the story of Niels’s relation to his Greenlandic roots, where for example the traditional dance with masks and drums has been performed for generations. It is a tale in which poetical imagery and magnificent Greenlandic scenery meet a socio-political perspective with documentary shots of everyday life in Greenland.
The question of how a cultural identity like Inuit has been influenced after having had the norms of Danish society imposed on it for years, is central in Tomić’s film. Is it possible to maintain a Greenlandic self-understanding even though an external system is threatening to wipe it out? In the film we meet artist Julie Hardenberg and author Helene Thisen as well, who like Niels live with a split cultural identity. The issue unfolds in the documentary shots, but also in the film’s poetic pictures where ice, water, vapour and clouds explore a transformation theme, producing a mystic atmosphere. In Unfinished Journeys Tomić seeks to create an understanding of the consequences of the colonisation of Greenland for the Intuits’ identity as individuals and parts of a society.
Graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Media in 2009. Lives and works in Copenhagen.
Vladimir Tomic's art films are played out in the field of contemporary art and experimental documentation. Universal and human tension caused by the changing structure of society is often the center of his art films.
Vladimir Tomic has exhibited at Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center in 2012, and the experimental The Zero Budget Biennial in 2010.
Watch video interview with Vladimir Tomic
Exhibition: Unfinished Journeys
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Aug 24 - Nov 11
Read more
Ruth Ewan (GB)
The works of Ruth Ewan (b. 1980 in Aberdeen, based in London) have often focused on individuals and groups who have utilised creative means to re-imagine and reshape the world around them. Her exhibition at Charlottenborg is centred around a major new commission which displays a huge archive of contemporary music instruments collected from the public of the Copenhagen region, and it explores the orchestra as a metaphor for a utopian society. The project has involved research conducted in Christiania, the famous freetown set within Copenhagen, as well as at The Danish Music Museum. Moreover the project draws on the research on prehistoric music in Scandinavia done by music archaeologist Cajsa S. Lund. Some of the main elements of the live work during the festival will be the formation of an alternative orchestra as well as a special music night set within Loppen, the celebrated music venue that forms a part of Christiania.
Charlottenborg is presenting two exhibitions as part of its contribution to the Copenhagen Art Festival in autumn 2012. The exhibitions, by the Danish artist Joachim Koester and the Scottish artist Ruth Ewan, both reflect the theme of ‘community’ that underlies the festival as a whole – and these exhibitions explore, in particular, notions of alternative communities.
Ewan studied at Edinburgh College of Art and is based in London. The artist’s recent solo projects include: Brank & Heckle, Dundee Contemporary Arts (2011); Liberties of The Savoy, Frieze Projects London (2012); Music Without Masters, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2012). The artist’s recent group exhibitions include: The Human Pattern, Kunsthall Oslo (2011), Younger Than Jesus, New Museum, New York (2009); Altermodern: Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London (2009); Life, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (2011).
Watch video interview with Ruth Ewan
Exhibition
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Aug 24 - Dec 30
Read more
Music performance
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Place: Højbro Plads
Aug 24, pm
Read more
Concert
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Place: Loppen, Christiania
Aug 25, 9pm
Read more
Music performance
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Aug 26, 4pm
Read more
Film Programme
In February the first artists will appear in Copenhagen. Ruth Ewan (GB), Søren Thilo Funder (DK), Yorgos Sapountzis (GR), Wooloo (DK) Vladimir Tomic (DK) and Otto Karvonen (FIN) will present works in a film programme presented at the five art centres; Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art and Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center and BLACK POP Contemporary Art Gallery at Paludan Bogcafé, at Hotel Fox, The Black Diamond and Props Coffee Shop in Copenhagen. Copenhagen Art Festival’s activities in February form part of the Wondercool programme, a winter festival with the participation of several Copenhagen based festivals, organised by Wonderful Copenhagen. Read more about the Wondercool Festival at: www.wondercoolcopenhagen.dk
Photo: Alba Gry Nybo
Read more about: Copenhagen Art Festival
Read more about: Otto Karvonen (FIN), Vladimir Tomić (DK), Wooloo (DK), Yorgos Sapountzis (GR), Søren Thilo Funder (DK), Ruth Ewan (GB)
Performances in public space
Already in February you can have a foretaste on Copenhagen Art Festival. The artists Magnús Logi Kristinsson (IS), Otto Karvonen (FIN) and Leif Holmstrand (DK) will make artistic interventions in the area of Højbro Plads in Copenhagen. Each in their own way they use the location to create situations which initiate new perceptions of public space. Copenhagen Art Festival’s activities in February form part of the Wondercool programme, a winter festival with the participation of several Copenhagen based festivals, organised by Wonderful Copenhagen. Read more at the Wondercool Festival website: www.wondercoolcopenhagen.dk
Photo: Michael Hansen
Læs mere om: Copenhagen Art Festival
Læs mere om: Magnús Logi Kristinsson (IS), Otto Karvonen (FI) og Leif Holmstrand (DK)
Director's Cut
Thursday, February 16 at 7 p.m. Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art will open its doors to a panel discussion about the visions for and expectations of the festival. The panel will be made up of Lene Crone Jensen, Festival Manager and the directors of four of the five participating art centres: Mark Sladen, Kunsthal Charlottenborg; Elisabeth Delin Hansen, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center; Helle Behrndt, Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art and Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art. Moderator: Martin Rosengaard Copenhagen Art Festival’s activities in February form part of the Wondercool programme, a winter festival with the participation of several Copenhagen based festivals, organised by Wonderful Copenhagen.
Photo: Peter Boel
Read more about: Copenhagen Art Festival
View a list the Directors and Curators at The Five Art Centres
THE CURATORS
The curators from the five art centres along with the directors have shaped the ideas and the theme for Copenhagen Art Festival. The curators are: Stine Hebert and Rhea Dall from Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Andreas Brøgger from Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Anna Holm and Kathrine Bolt Rasmussen from Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Anne Kielgast from Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Photo: Anders Sune Berg
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
Copenhagen Art Festival is one of the major presentations of Danish and international contemporary art in the region. The festival will open 24. August 2012 with an event-packed programme until 2. September. Hereafter the newly opened exhibitions will continue throughout the autumn.
Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Read more about: Copenhagen Art Festival
Read more about the Theme of the festival
DEN FRIE CENTRE OF CENTEMPORARY ART
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art is situated at Østerbro. It is a unique work of art created by the Danish artist J. F. Willumsen in 1898. The house is build by artists for artists and has a particular focus on contemporary artist collaborations, collective exhibitions, artist’s unions and experimenting groups and networks. 8 exhibitions are presented yearly, most of them being group exhibitions.
Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art
Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art is situated at Gammel Strand in one of Copenhagen’s beautiful historic buildings, newly restored considering Scandinavian architecture and design. 6-8 alternating exhibitions are presented yearly and are showing new tendencies in Danish and international contemporary art. Debates, salons and events focus on relevant themes in the various exhibitions. Gl. Strand’s book café and shop are open to everyone.
OVERGADEN INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art is situated by Christianshavns Channel. It was founded by a group of artists in 1986 and has a strong profile as an open and experimenting art centre for both young and established artists. Overgaden presents 8 – 10 exhibitions a year along with artist’s talks, film showings, seminars and debates.
NIKOLAJ COPENHAGEN CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center is housed in a former church at Nikolaj Plads. The art centre presents 6-8 exhibitions yearly with focus on the newest Danish and international contemporary art. Once a year an exhibition addressed to children is presented along with a solo exhibition with a contemporary art pioneer.
KUNSTHAL CHARLOTTENBORG
Kunsthal Charlottenborg is placed at Kgs. Nytorv having The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and The Danish Art Library as its closest neighbours. The building was erected in 1883 and has been a central meeting place for artists ever since. Alternating exhibitions are presented with various Danish and international contemporary artists.
Series & Seminars
Special Projects
Contemporary art is not created in an isolated zone. It entangles itself in different fields of art, in the everyday life we share, and in public opinion – it engages and generates meaning. This was the background for a series of Special Projects created by Copenhagen Art Festival, including a crowd-sourced film project, which received 501 contributions from the entire globe. To emphasise the borderlands and fractures between visual arts and other expressive forms, the festival also developed and produced a series of large-scale projects and exhibitions is collaboration with organisations that work with other art forms, including SNYK and Wundergrund, Cinemateket, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and ARKEN. The Danish daily newspaper Politiken was also involved as a platform for artists’ projects made specifically to fit their feature article format - emphasising the role of art in everyday politics and social debates.
ART IN PUBLIC SPACES
City spaces are something we all share, have access to and use. As an experiment in creating or creating the potential for different and new communities, 15 artists presented a series of projects commissioned specifically for the festival and the area around two centrally located squares in inner Copenhagen. Here passersby were met by installations, sculptures, performances and other events that existed at the intersection of the city as a framework for extraordinary manifestations and celebrations and the site of rebellions and demonstrations. . In works of a spectacular and subtle character, the artists challenged our public behaviour, creating coherence and contact across the boundaries of existing communities.
One of the main contributions to the festival programme was Jeppe Hein’s project ILOVIT, which transformed the city square of Højbro Plads into a site of social interaction with inspiration from the local amusement park Tivoli and traditional market places. Under Hein’s direction, Danish and international artists created a dynamic gathering place where the general public could get together and experience colourful and entertaining sculptural amusements and architectural experiments. Based on popular play and creativity, the project provided artworks that could be experienced with all five senses and a daily programme of yoga classes, table-tennis competitions, performances, culinary juggling, film screenings and music.
Browse our programme for events in the public space: click here
See the description of ILOVIT at Højbro Plads: click here
Exhibitions at the five art centres
Kunsthal Charlottenborg:
Ruth Ewan
Joachim Koester: If One Thing Moves, Everything Moves
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center:
Conversations
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art:
Beyond Good and Evil
Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art:
Hito Steyerl: The Kiss
Yorgos Sapountzis: Deus Ex Machina
Kunstforeningen GL STRAND:
Unfinished Journeys
The International Advisory Board
Solveig Øvstebø: Director Bergen Kunsthall
Lars Bang Larsen: Ph.D, Art Historian and Curator
Bjørnstjerne Christiansen: Artist SUPERFLEX
Mai Abu ElDahab: Former director, Objectif Exhibitions in Antwerpen
Read more about: Copenhagen Art Festival
The Festival Board
Stine Bosse (Chairwoman). Disputes a number of posts on boards within culture and businesses in Denmark and is active in several NGO organisations. Head of the board at The Royal Danish Theatre.
Jens Gehl, Lawyer. Disputes a number of posts on boards in several cultural organisations
Teddy Wivel, Former State-Authorized Public Accountant and partner in Ernst & Young. Consultant and author with speciality on professional board work
Mikkel Harder Munck-Hansen, Actor, Director and Manager of the IMAGES festival, Centre of Culture and Development
Kim Fridbjørg, Partner and Creative Director at the architectural firm Fridbjørg Arkitekter
Helle Behrndt, Director, Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art and representative for the art centres
Læs mere om: Copenhagen Art Festival
Directors And Curators
Mark Sladen, Director, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Helle Behrndt, Director, Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg, Artistic Director and Malene Natascha Ratcliffe, Director of Development, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
Elisabeth Delin Hansen, Director, Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Henriette Bretton-Meyer, Director, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Stine Hebert & Rhea Dall, Curators, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Andreas Brøgger, Curator, Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Anna Holm, Curator, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Anne Kielgast, Curator, Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
COPENHAGEN ART FESTIVAL
Copenhagen Art Festival opened 24. August 2012 with an event-packed programme until 2. September. Hereafter the newly opened exhibitions continued throughout the autumn. The festival is one of the major presentations of international contemporary art in the region.
Copenhagen Art Festival presented a multifaceted exhibition programme with art works by Danish and international artists. The festival took place in the streets and squares of the inner city of Copenhagen and at the major contemporary art centres: Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art and Kunstforeningen GL STRAND.
The festival was organised by the five art centres and together they developed the concept for the festival. A number of other cultural institutions dedicated to architecture, film and music also contributed to the festival with interdisciplinary projects. In total the festival gave an outstanding opportunity for the audiences to experience what was happening on the contemporary art scene in 2012.
THEME AND VISION FOR THE FESTIVAL
Theme: Communities
On one level the festival was a mere celebration and presentation of significant artworks, on the other it would through the artworks and the working methods of the festival, directly or indirectly, ask questions about the ways in which notions of Communities are conceived. How they are constituted, and what the implications of constituting a discourse of Communities are for our society.
Our ideas about Communities and collectivity are continuously changing and are influenced by social, cultural, economical and political changes. With the festival we wished to explore the concepts of Communities and ask questions to the challenges, conditions and possibilities shaping Communities today.
Vision: Highlighting the creative power of contemporary art.
Copenhagen Art Festival will highlight the creative power of contemporary art and its relevance for people and society in general. On this background we will present national and international art that challenge and reflect on our present time, and through the activities of the festival we will create an active dialogue with the public. Through the festival programme we would like to engage, create debates and experiences, and give pause for thoughts.
HISTORY OF COPENHAGEN ART FESTIVAL
In November 2010 the five art centres in Copenhagen, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center and Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art were selected by The Danish Arts Council to organise the festival after a competition. The festival was thus realised and curated in an extraordinary collaboration between the five central art institutions in the middle of Copenhagen.
The festival in 2012 was the second of its kind. The first festival U-TURN, took place in 2008 and was curated by Charlotte Bagger Brandt, Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Judith Schwarzbart. U-TURN took place in various venues throughout the city and centered around the notion of the U-TURN as a movement. A performative turn and a radical change of direction creating situations where something new can occur.
Read more about: Copenhagen Art Festival
See a list over employees at the festival secretariat
Festival Secretariat
Lene Crone Jensen: Festival Manager
lcj@cph-artfestival.org +45 2784 1614
Michael Dissing: Head of Economy
md@cph-artfestival.org +45 2044 9646
Christian Skovbjerg Jensen: Curator, Public Space
Karen Danielsen, Coordinator, Fundraising & Production
Jesper N. Jørgensen: Editor/Coordinator of Publications
Maria Kjær Themsen: Coordinator, Event Programme
Nadia Claudi: Project Manager, Gesamt
LEARNING & EXPERIENCE
Head of Learning & Experience: Hilde Østergaard
Coordinators:
Miriam H. Wistreich
Stina Hasse
Interns:
Anna Wistreich
Ida Marie Havsager
Jonas Hellesøe Christensen
Julie Malmstrøm Jensen
Louise Hægg Bysted
Rebekka Laugesen
PR & COMMUNICATION
Head of Communications: Helle Bøgelund
Coordinators:
Maja Laybourn
Thorbjørn Weise Sørensen (web)
PUBLIC SPACE
Curator: Christian Skovbjerg Jensen
Head of Technique: Emil Krøyer
Coordinators:
Amanda Bloch (ILOVIT)
Louise Trier
Nanna Balslev Strøjer
Ulrikke Neergaard
Intern:
Robert Wagner Johnson
Tickets
Tickets can be purchased at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Kunstforeningen GL STRAND, Kunsthal Charlottenborg and Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center.
All-round festival tickets
The all-round festival ticket entitles access to Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Kunstforeningen GL STRAND, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center and Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art in the period from Aug 24 – Sept 2 and one subsequent re-entry for the exhibitions.
Adults: DKK 100
Students, seniors: DKK80
Groups (min. 10): DKK 80 per person
Children up to 16: free entrance
Ticket for one venue:
Please see the website of the individual venue
Guided tours
a) One venue
Schools: DKK 400
Other groups: DKK 400 / +ticket for individual venue required for each person
b) Two or more venues.
Schools: DKK 750
Other groups: DKK 750 / All-round ticket required for each person
c) Tour guided by school ambassadors.
Schools: DKK 400
Other groups: DKK 400 / All-round ticket required for each person
Special organized tours: call for information:
The first 100 bookings for schools will be free.
Other activities
Artist-run workshops
The workshops can take place at the festival or in schools etc.
All groups: DKK 1500
City walks
All groups: DKK 1000
Photo Challenge
All groups: DKK 1000
All information is subject to change
Artists
Camilla Berner
Anja Franke
Tim Hinman
Marie Kølbæk Iversen
Karoline H. Larsen
Berit Nørgaard
Anne Marie Ploug
Tina Scherzberg
Ultra Grøn / Jan Danebod
Free drop in offers
Free Drop In Workshops
Karoline H. Larsen: Jætte Træet
Workshop for children
Nikolaj Plads
Aug 28, 2pm; Aug 1, 10am; Sep 1, 3:30pm
Læs mere
Camilla Berner: Cut the Grass
Workshop
Østre Anlæg
Aug 25, 2pm; Aug 29, 2pm
Read more
Marie Kølbæk Iversen: Lekture
Workshop
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
Sep 2, 2pm; Sep 2, 5pm
Read more
Berit Nørgaard: I am yours
Workshop
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 26, 2pm; Aug 31, 2pm
Read more
Anja Franke: Teabar Waste Service
Workshop
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 27, 2pm; Aug 30, 2pm
Read more
Free City Walks
Copenhagen Art Festival City Walk
Meeting place: Amagertorv
Aug 26, 1pm; Aug 28, 5pm; Aug 30, 5pm; Sep 1, 1pm
Read more
Cultural History City Walk
Meeting place: Storkespringvandet, Amagertorv
Aug 29, 5pm; Sep 2, 1pm
Read more
Photo Challenge
Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Aug 25, 1pm; Sep 2, 1pm
Read more
Routes 2 Communities
Your pathway into Copenhagen Art Festival. Routes to Communities guides you through the city and the festival art works, opening up new perspectives and providing insight into contemporary art. See artists from all over the world talk about their work, watch wild and exciting performances and listen to tales of communities, you never knew existed. Using propositions about communities, routes through the festival have been established – try them out!
The festival's programme for learning and experience meets the audiences in both formal and informal settings and consists of a variety of experiential and dialogic activities based on:
- Artworks, art projects, art practices and exhibitions presented during the festival and at the five art centres
- Concepts for communities and different understandings and interpretations of collaborative and participatory processes
- Contemporary art and visual culture in general, and the identity and work of the five art centres
The festival highlights the personal commitment, contrasts, confidence and relevance as core values for learning and experience. We believe in communication that reflects the diverse, relational and highly performative practices of both collaborative learning strategies and contemporary art. The goal is to create enhanced social learning, which can reach out to both existing and potential audiences by stressing inclusive, accessible, informal, broadly appealing and site specific components. We are approaching art and communities as both a research-based an experience-oriented matter.
- A detailed programme with activities and resources where experience, dialogue, practice and learning are combined before and during the festival with participation opportunities for all audiences. We hope to match different interests and needs from our audiences through physical encounters in the shape of walks, guided visits, events, talks, courses, lectures, workshops, performances, parties, concerts, slams and jams and through an extensive printed and digital platform of information and education resources.
- An ambassador network consisting of both the known and 'hard to reach' users will be invited to establish long term learning and creating partnerships with the ambition to open up contemporary art practices through collaborative work with an artist. The artist will be producing an artwork for the festival with the ambassador network. The artist will be giving them skills to teach and guide others from their own communities during the festival.
- An open and socially diverse public zone or lab, where people can meet, eat, relax, socialise, reflect and contribute to different communicating and learning elements of the festival. The zone will also form a scene or lab for the event programme, where exploration of communities through contemporary art - and contemporary art through communities connect the art centres, exhibitions and public space projects with the audiences.
Routes 2 Communities
Your pathway into Copenhagen Art Festival. Routes to Communities guides you through the city and the festival art works, opening up new perspectives and providing insight into contemporary art. See artists from all over the world talk about their work, watch wild and exciting performances and listen to tales of communities, you never knew existed. Using propositions about communities, routes through the festival have been established – try them out!
Kunsthal Kroniken
Kunsthal Kroniken, a collaboration between Politiken and Copenhagen Art Festival.
The Copenhagen Art Festival paper and programme
Download the Copenhagen Art Festival paper and programme
Read it online here: click here
Press Photos Gesamt Disaster 501 - What Happened to Man?
Image Credits: "Gesamt. Disaster 501 - What Happened to Man? Concept: Lars von Trier. Director: Jenle Hallund. Producer: Copenhagen Art Festival"
Press Photos Public Spaces
Press photos from the Copenhagen Art Festival public spaces programme.
Press Photos Den Frie
Info on press photos from the Den Frie exhibition.
Click here
Press Photos Kunstforeningen GL STRAND
Info on press photos from the Kunstforeningen GL STRAND exhibition.
Click here
Press Photos Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Download press photos from the Kunsthal Charlottenborg exhibitions.
Click here
Press Photos Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center
Press Photos Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Download press photos from the Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art exhibitions.
Click here
Download Festival Paper
Download the Copenhagen Art Festival Paper here.
View the Festival Paper online: click here
Contact
COPENHAGEN ART FESTIVAL - Festival office
Helle Bøgelund
E: hbh@cphartfestival.org
T: +45 33369042
DEN FRIE
Kit Leunbach
E: kl@denfrie.dk
T: +45 33122803
CHARLOTTENBORG
Helle Bøgelund-Hansen
E: helleh@kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk
T. +45 33369042
GL STRAND
Anne Kielgast
E: ak@glstrand.dk
T: +45 33360267
NIKOLAJ
Camilla Gerhardt
E: cg@nikolajkunsthal.dk
T: +45 33181784
OVERGADEN
Solveig Lindeskov Andersen
E: sla@overgaden.org
+45 32577273
Press Release
Here you can download the official press releases from Copenhagen Art Festival:
Press photos
Here you can download the official Copenhagen Art Festival press photos:
In November 2010 the five art centres in Copenhagen, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center and Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art were selected by The Danish Arts Council to organise the festival after a competition. The festival will thus be realised and curated in an extraordinary collaboration between the five art centres in the middle of Copenhagen.
The festival in 2012 will be the second of its kind. The first festival U-TURN, took place in 2008 and was curated by Charlotte Bagger Brandt, Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Judith Schwarzbart. U-TURN took place in various venues throughout the city and centered around the notion of the U-TURN as a movement. A performative turn and a radical change of direction creating situations where something new can occur.
- Copenhagen Art Festival will open 24 August 2012 with an event-packed programme until 2 September. Hereafter the exhibitions will continue throughout the autumn
- The festival is organised by a festival secretariat managed by Lene Crone Jensen and the five art centres: Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art and Gl. Strand Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art
- Copenhagen Art Festival is one of the major presentations of international contemporary art in the region and it presents a multifaceted exhibition programme with art works by Danish and international artists
- The theme of the festival takes notion of how communities are conceived. How they are constituted, and what the implications of constituting a discourse of communities are for our society
- Copenhagen Art Festival will present national and international art that challenges and reflects on our present time, and through the activities of the festival we will create an active dialogue with the public
ACCREDITATION
Deadline for accreditation for all media at Copenhagen Art Festival will be announced soon.
Please email your request for accreditation to:
hbh@cph-artfestival.org
We need to know how many persons are applying and the media's plan for working at the festival.