Copenhagen, 21.06.08 - 24.08.08




Al Hansen's works are a humorous and intelligent conglomerate of neo-dada, fluxus and pop art. The exhibition focuses on his performative practice and in addition presents his drawings, collages and assemblages.

Arthur Køpcke's oeuvre is shown in a retrospective exhibition with works from 1949 to 1974 all of which in each their own way take as their point of departure his unique chief work Reading/Work-pieces - a collection of ideas for works encouraging the viewer to participate actively.

The exhibition spotlights the two bodies of work in separate sections of the gallery. As fluxus artists and practising artists in Denmark their paths crossed on several levels. Their art is based on an abandonment of bourgeois art and its institutions and an abandonment of a perception of art as sharply compartmentalised. In their efforts they shared a use of ordinary kitchen utensils and rubbish elements as material for collages and assemblages.

Arthur Køpcke's significance as dynamic hub of the European avant-garde in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s found its locus in Galerie Køpcke at three different addresses in Copenhagen. However, his activities covered both Denmark and Europe. Similarly, Al Hansen brought the great big world to Denmark and then, a veritable art nomad, he moved back out into it.

Both these fluxus artists have enriched Danish art live to such a high degree that they merit an exhibition focusing on their work and activities. In Arthur Køpcke's case we will mount a retrospective presentation of works from his various periods and forms of expression. In particular his main work Reading/Work-pieces will be spotlighted. For Al Hansen we will focus on his performative practice in both text, sound and film recordings. However, the exhibition will also show his characteristic Venus collages and assemblages with Hershey bar wrappers, cigarette butts, matches and other rubbish.

For the exhibition two catalogues will be produced and sold together. The catalogues contain texts that offer comprehensive views of the period and the two artists. Thus the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, Marianne Bech, has written an introduction to the Fluxus movement, Arthur Køpcke and Galerie Køpcke. Claus Carstensen has written a text about Køpcke's work with language and pictures and about the subsequent artists with clear inspiration from Køpcke. In the Al Hansen catalogue Morten Søndergaard, ph.D and curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, has written about Al Hansen's performative practice, and Simon Anderson, ph.D and associate professor at Department of Art History, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has written about the life and works of Al Hansen. Maria Gadegaard and Helle Bøgelund have written the curator's note.

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Kunsthal Charlottenborg
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DK 1051 Copenhagen K
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