Press release -
What would artists advertise today? Kunsthal Charlottenborg launches international art show on advertisement panels
In close collaboration with the curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Jeppe Ugelvig, Kunsthal Charlottenborg launches its third biennale, Public Structures. The international art exhibition is shown over the summer in the streets, train stations and bus stops all over Denmark.
Press view: Friday 23 June 11.00-12.00
Artist talk: Friday 23 June 12.30-13.30
Exhibition period: 23 June – 23 July 2023
What would it mean for an artwork to be mistaken for an ad? When art steps outside its own institutional context, it enters a sprawling media ecology with a plethora of critical and economic possibilities. This strategy, which holds a long history in modern and contemporary art, has been the guiding principle for Public Structures, the third edition of the Kunsthal Charlottenborg Biennale, which revives the critical tradition of artistic distribution through commercial media.
In a nationwide campaign, the biennale activates the visual economy of advertising where value is perpetually constructed and circulated. By asking the simple question, What would artists advertise today? the biennale invites artists to insert themselves in the physical image structures of public life, seeking out opportunities for both communication and commerce.
Kunsthal Charlottenborg Biennale is an international art exhibition presented in streets, train stations, and bus stops throughout almost all of Denmark. The biennale is held every other year with the express intention of bringing contemporary art out across the nation. Participating artists in the Kunsthal Charlottenborg Biennale 2023:
Akeem Smith, Bless (Desiree Heiss & Ines Kaag), CATPC (Congolese Plantation Workers), Eric Andersen, AA Bronson + General Idea, Hans-Peter Feldmann, KAWS, Koo Jeong A, Luki von der Gracht, Maja Malou Lyse & Esben Weile Kjær, Martine Syms, Minerva Cuevas, Michael Rakowitz, Pippa Garner, Rasheed Araeen, Rosemarie Trockel, Serapis Maritime, Shuang Li, Sungsil Ryu, SUPERFLEX, Tromarama, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Yugoexport/Irena Haiduk.
The 2023 Kunsthal Charlottenborg Biennale is curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968), who is director of the Serpentine Galleries in London, and Jeppe Ugelvig (b. 1993), an independent curator whose credits include exhibitions in Beijing, Hong Kong, New York and Ramallah. In 2020, Ugelvig was also co-curator of the exhibition Witch Hunt at Kunsthal Charlottenborg. Public Structures reflects the fusion of the curators’ individual interests and research, circulating around the playful distributional legacies of the international Fluxus movement.
The works featured in the exhibition are displayed on nationwide advertising panels, which means that most of the population will be able to experience the biennale over the course of its run. The event continues in the vein of Kunsthal Charlottenborg’s previous nationwide exhibitions Yoko Ono – Transmission (2017), It’s Urgent! (2019) and Poet Slash Artist (2021).
The Kunsthal Charlottenborg Biennale is produced in collaboration with AFA JCDecaux with support from the Augustinus Foundation, the Danish Arts Foundation, and the Obel Family Foundation.
Practical information
Kunsthal Charlottenborg Biennale: Public Structures
23 June – 23 July 2023
Press view: 23 June at 11.00-12.00, Copenhagen Central Station (under the clock)
All works will be shown:
26 June – 23 July: Kunsthal Charlottenborg, in the courtyard
19 – 26 June: Copenhagen Central Station
3 – 16 July 2023: All over Denmark
Free admission to the exhibition
Further info here
Invitation to press view
There will be a press view Friday 23 June at 11.00-12.00, where the curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Jeppe Ugelvig will introduce the exhibition. If you wish to attend, please notify Head of Communications Jeannie Møller Haltrup at jmh@kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk.
Invitation to artist talk
To celebrate the opening of the exhibition, Kunsthal Charlottenborg invites to an artist talk with the two curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Jeppe Ugelvig on Friday 23 June at 12.30-13.30 at Art Hub Copenhagen, Halmtorvet 27, 1700 Copenhagen V. The talk is free but requires booking in advance. Get your ticket here.
Contact
Michael Thouber, Director Kunsthal Charlottenborg, mt@kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk, (+45) 2840 8050
For further information, please contact:
Jeannie Møller Haltrup
Head of Communication, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
jmh@kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk / (+45) 3374 4629
Kunsthal Charlottenborg er et af de største og smukkeste udstillingssteder for samtidskunst i Nordeuropa. Kunsthallen præsenterer et ambitiøst udstillingsprogram med internationalt udsyn, der omfatter kunst af såvel talenter som etablerede stjerner fra både ind- og udland. Det toneangivende udstillingsprogram suppleres med en lang række aktiviteter som artist talks, performances, koncerter og filmvisninger.
