ARKEN Museum of Modern Art Premieres its Collection

Written by Eugene Rankins Wednesday, 16 February 2011 23:01

Copenhagen - At last! With the opening of the new extension ARKEN can present its collection in a permanent exhibition for the very first time. It is a milestone in the museum’s history. The Collection will include an entire room dedicated to one of the world’s leading contemporary artists, Damien Hirst, and a number of new works by today’s most interesting artists. Works which the museum deliberately has been saving for the opening. Now on permanent exhibition,

Since the inception of the museum we have lacked exhibition space to show our Collection.  Now we are doubling the space for the art. It is wonderful and very necessary, says director at ARKEN Christian Gether.

All of the museum’s current galleries – except the new extension – will be devoted to the Collection. ARKEN’s Collection has grown by leaps and bounds since the museum opened in 1996, and it is a milestone in the museum’s history that it is now receiving a comprehensive and permanent presentation.

Unique Damien Hirst room
In a unique gesture the YBA artist Damien Hirst is given a room all to himself at ARKEN. Hirst is one the absolutely seminal artists on the international scene of contemporary art. His art interprets life’s existential questions with aesthetic virtuosity and philosophical punch. With eight key works, several of them on permanent loan from the Dresing Collection in London, ARKEN’s visitors will see a presentation of the artist’s works that is unique in Scandinavia. Among the exhibited works is the over eight metres long The Four Elements (Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, Green and Blue) (2005) which consists of four vivid paintings with real butterflies affixed to them.

New works on display for the first time

ARKEN’s Collection ranks among the most significant collections of contemporary art in the Danish museum world.

Several of the works now presented have not previously been shown but have been saved for this “premiere”: The American conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner has created a text-based work for ARKEN’s architecture, and the artist couple Elmgreen & Dragset’s installation of a crumbling staircase at the foot of an administration room is given a space in ARKEN’s Art Axis. Too, YBA artist Marc Quinn and Danes Jeppe Hein and Anders Brinch are represented with new works, as well as the German painter Anselm Reyle who is internationally recognised for renewing abstract painting.

The Collection holds works by some of the primary international contemporary artists in media such as painting, photography, installation, video, sculpture, etc., including Damien Hirst, Mona Hatoum, Marc Quinn, Noble & Webster, Dan Graham, Jeff Koons, Lawrence Weiner, Elmgreen & Dragset, Clare Woods, Anselm Reyle and Jeppe Hein.

Several of the works and artists behind them are described in detail on ARKEN’s webpage www.arken.dk where you can read work analyses and artist biographies

ARKEN Museum of Modern Art (ARKEN Museum for Moderne Kunst ) is a private self owning, but state authorised, new art museum near the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen. It is located in the suburb-city Ishøj, close to the bay of Køge 20 kilometers south of Copenhagen. It was opened on 15 March 1996 by her majesty of Denmark, Queen Margrethe. It was designed by the Danish architect Søren Robert Lund, and has a very special form of architecture. The museum features modern works by Danish, Scandinavian and international painters.