The Danish Pavilion: 51st Venice Biennale

Texts by Peter Adolphsen, Bill Arning, Anders Kreuger, Sanne Kofod Olsen, Anette Østerby, Mai Misfeldt and Marianne Torp, Vibeke Viboldt Knudsen, Lars Erik Frank, Daniel Pies, et al.

“Swedish culture is still marked by an age-old taboo against complaining and voicing discontent, at least in public. To the very end Andrée and Strindberg must have considered their notebooks semi-public. How could we otherwise explain their complacency in the face of contingencies that were certainly ‘linked in a fatal chain’? We have no choice but to remain true to the arrogance and naivety of our own psychological world view. We must substitute our own anxieties for theirs and give voice to their fear of death, retroactively.” Anders Kreuger, in Joachim Koester, Message from Andrée

Five artists’ books and one general catalogue document the works of Eva Koch, Joachim Koester, Peter Land, Ann Lislegaard, and Gitte Villesen. Conceived in close collaboration with each artist, the books focus on this younger generation of Danish artists who were a part of the international breakthrough for Danish visual art during the 1990s. The books trace how in their various artistic practices the artists are all preoccupied with the representation of reality within or beyond the real.