21/5/2015
Art Relay
GL Strand, Copenhagen
The exhibition Art Relay will present 17 contemporary Danish artists who invite each other based on their dialogue and inspiration.
What interests Danish contemporary artists right now? What inspires them? These two questions
are the point of departure for Kunstforeningen GL STRAND’s summer exhibition Art Relay,
where the institution steps back and gives the floor to the artists, who are for once allowed to
choose who they want to exhibit alongside. It all results in an unusual exhibition, challenging
events, unpredictable collaborations and other ongoing surprises.
GL STRAND has started off the relay by inviting the artist group SUPERFLEX to participate with
a work and to invite whichever artist they consider relevant and inspiring today. SUPERFLEX has
been chosen because for many years they have collaborated with Danish and international artists
from different positions, as well as engaging in major projects outside the actual art context. In
their work they turn the focus on exchanges and take a strong interest in dialogue and in the new
meanings that arise when different positions meet. SUPERFLEX has subsequently invited the
performance artist Olof Olsson, who has invited the photographer Per Bak Jensen, who has in
turn invited the video artist Vladimir Tomic, and more artists pass on the baton, a process that is
already in full swing right now.
The artists present...
With the exhibition, the public will experience a presentation significantly different from the
normal kind, since it is the artists’ thoughts and ambitions and their mutual dialogues that create
the presentational framing for the works. We get the artists talking about their choice of artist
and thus emphasize artistic affinities and other possible links and dialogues among living Danish
artists. The presentation takes the form of either text-borne or video-recorded statements and will
be a striking element in the design of the exhibition, which visually reflects the logic and flow of
the ‘baton-passing’. Stafetten will thus be visually diverse and dynamic, and not least ambitious,
and will offer a glimpse of the aesthetic, political and cultural discussions that preoccupy
contemporary art right now.
Art Relay live
The artistic relay will not only take place among the artists in the exhibition. It also involves other
arts in a comprehensive evening event, One Night Only, which has poetry, performance, round-
table discussions, concerts and talks on the programme. It takes the stage in the courtyard with a
poetry relay in the course of the exhibition period and even goes off to The People Meeting on the
island of Bornholm to get involved in the cultural policy debates. Finally it will find its way to
public opinion through a collaboration on an opinion piece with the newspaper Politiken.
Image: Javier Tapia and Camilo Ontiveros, Travelling Dust (still), 2014, HD video. Photo: Ruben Diaz © Javier Tapia
Press Contact:
Pernille Wahlgren: +45 33 36 02 61 / pw@glstrand.dk
Marie Olesen on: T: 3336 0264 / E: mo@glstrand.dk
Opening: Friday 22 May 2015 at 17:00.
GL STRAND
Gammel Strand 48
Tue - Sat 11am to 5pm, Wed 11am to 8pm