May 22 – July 26, 2009




A spectacular 150 year birthday greeting to ARoS from Ingvar Cronhammar, Olafur Eliasson, Erik A. Frandsen, Per Kirkeby, Michael Kvium, John Kørner, Julie Nord, Bjørn Nørgaard and Hanne Nielsen/Birgit Johnsen

A highpoint in the celebration of ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum's 150 year anniversary in 2009 will be the exhibition HAPPY BIRTHDAY, which opens on 22nd May in the presence of the museum's patron, HM Queen Margrethe II. The exhibition is created by a number of outstanding Danish artists who all have a relation to ARoS, in that they have previously exhibited at the museum and, in addition, are represented by works in the ARoS collection. It revolves around the artists Ingvar Cronhammar, Olafur Eliasson, Erik A. Frandsen, Julie Nord, Per Kirkeby, Michael Kvium, John Kørner, Bjørn Nørgaard, and the artist duo Hanne Nielsen/Birgit Johnsen. Over the course of spring, the artists have been let loose in the museum's storage spaces, amongst the many paintings, sculptures, installations, videos, photos and drawings, which in the majority of cases are seldom exhibited. Each artist has been subsequently allotted a cube measuring 6x6x6 metres, in which they each stage the selected works - with a strong personal touch from each individual artist, naturally. The outcome of this is nine spectacular art-cubes. The result of the artistic encounter between an art collection of circa 14,000 works in total and the ten Danish artists will be first revealed at the opening of the exhibition. But one thing is certain, though: the viewer can look forward to seeing and experiencing an innovative and spectacular staging of works from the museum collection in the large special exhibition gallery and the special exhibition foyer.

The museum storerooms
The vast majority of the museum's artworks that are not exhibited in the three galleries, together with parts of the museum collection on Levels 5, 6, and 8, and in The 9 Spaces, are found deep underground in the climate-controlled storerooms. These large storage spaces are normally only accessible to certain museum employees. It is here the artists have been visiting, as a special exception. More than 1200 paintings and photographs hang closely side by side on 50 moving shelves - landscapes, portraits, still lifes, non-figurative works, and a single nun.

The more than 800 sculptures, handicraft works, packed up installations and videos have their own sculpture storerooms, where vases by Bindesbøll, Robert Jacobsen sculptures and Poul Gernes' 12 layer cakes fight for space on the shelves alongside Bertel Thorvaldsen's in-scale plaster sculpture of himself. Finally, there is the graphic collection with over 12,000 drawings and graphic magazines. They also have their own storage space, where the delicate works lie well protected in cabinets and drawers. The museum's large collection - both exhibited and hidden - as a whole forms a representative selection of Danish art since 1770, and international art from the 1960s onwards.

Cultural heritage
From the number of works it is clear that it is only possible to exhibit a small part of the comprehensive collection. There are many reasons why some works rarely, or never, see the light of day, even though they as individual works are central in the museum's collection, as well as in Danish art history. But it is an important task for Danish museums to protect cultural heritage. Therefore it is absolutely crucial that museums such as ARoS attend to the collection as a whole, even though many works do not necessarily fit into the shifting art view of the times. As a shining example that it isn't necessarily a lack of artistic quality which excludes the works from the exhibition halls, the museum's paintings by Vilhelm Hammershøi can be mentioned. For decades, his grey-toned paintings with moody motifs were not exhibited, until the view of his art changed suddenly at the end of the 1900s, and the artist gained a major international breakthrough with exhibitions all over the world.

The museum's galleries
As part of the celebration of the jubilee, a number of the museum's main works in the permanent exhibitions will also be put in play through discussions and confrontations with other works.

Photos of the artists' cubes can be downloaded from www.aros.dk
Photographer: Ole Hein Pedersen.
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AROS KUNSTMUSEUM
Aros Allé 2
8000 Aarhus, Denmark

Tel: 8730 6600
Fax: 8730 6601
Email: info@aros.dk
www.aros.dk