Peder Severin Krøyer, From the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, 1895, Skagens Museum, Skagen
When I was in Skagen in October, I visited the museum and saw the now-homeless stockbrokers presented side by side with the fishermen, the gathering around the Midsummer bonfire, and the other familiar Skagen locals. There was something quite intriguing about this array of besuited and top-hatted gentlemen juxtaposed with the canonised, rural, and National Romantic motifs. Different forms of labour, I thought – the profiteers of the Industrial Revolution versus rustic peasants and life’s simple joys – united in equal formats, a union brought about by the fire at the Copenhagen Stock Exchange in April.
Henriette Heise, Re:refrain, C.C.C., Copenhagen
The late literary critic Frederic Jameson said it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. But the world ends for someone every day. Henriette Heise’s 22-year-old images of empty pockets pasted on the basement walls of C.C.C. have stayed with me all year, as has her text about “death and shiver.” Most of us are lucky enough to have been granted a set of hands; Heise asks us what we do with them.
‘Terrassen Presents: Yvonne Rainer’, Palads, Copenhagen
It was quite amazing to have the opportunity to see Rainer’s black and white films pressed up against Poul Gerner’s peeling pastel facades in one of the oldest cinemas in the Nordic region – with pick-and-mix candy and Gladiator II rumbling away next door. Her films feel so insanely ambitious, uncompromising, and relevant. Privilege (1990) continually undermines its own premise in its exploration of power structures, first as a documentary on menopause, then as an autobiographical meta-film. At one point, the following statement is made about utopia: “The more impossible it seems, the more necessary it becomes.”
Asta Lynge is an artist based in Copenhagen. In 2024, Lynge held solo exhibitions at O-Overgaden in Copenhagen and Francis Irv in New York. She took part in the group exhibition Marseilles, Illinois at Braunsfelder in Cologne and Artificial Optimism at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen.
For this year’s contributions to the Advent Calendar, see here
