“We have chosen Maja Malou Lyse because she invests herself deeply in her art, maintaining full control and effortless ease while exploring themes of objectification, identity, and societal norms,” states today’s press release from the Danish Arts Foundation.
Lyse, who graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2022, is often described as Danish art’s fourth-wave feminist. Her videos, installations, and photographs frequently address issues of desire and power, especially the power to define one’s own desire.
Even while still a student, Lyse was a prominent presence on the Danish visual art scene. In 2021, she held her first institutional solo exhibition at Brandts Kunstmuseum. However, her major popular breakthrough came even before this and outside the art institution. In 2019, she had her own TV show on DR, the Danish national broadcasting corporation. Called Sex with Maja, the show followed Lyse’s efforts to challenge norms and prejudices about sex.
When the #MeToo movement eventually made its way into the Danish public debate after dragging its feet for a while, it was only natural to ask Lyse for her views on the matter. When asked about the issue of solidarity among artists in her generation regarding these issues, Lyse told Kunstkritikk:
There is definitely a sense of solidarity. Since the 1970s, feminism has become highly academic and has primarily been the province of white academics. In recent years, a new kind of awareness has emerged in my generation. Feminism has infiltrated mainstream culture, becoming part of it, and popular culture has given more people a new linguistic relationship with feminism. For me, solidarity within my generation is highly visible, as social media is a crucial factor for communication and debate.
Indeed, Lyse is frequently featured in Danish media. Her exhibition at O-Overgaden in 2024 – which took its starting point in a photograph of a nude Marilyn Monroe that appeared in Playboy in 1953 without the actress’s consent – prompted a separate episode in DR’s news podcast Genstart. By appointing Lyse as the featured artist in this year’s pavilion, Denmark sends an artist who is more media-savvy than the average Danish visual artist.
Each project funding committee under the Danish Arts Foundation, whose members are replaced every four years, can select a maximum of two artists for the Danish Pavilion. The committee (Jakob Fenger, Marie Dufresne, Anders Gaardboe Jensen, Skye Jin and Molly Haslund) that appointed Lyse also chose Inuuteq Storch in 2024, which marked the first time the Kingdom of Denmark was represented in Venice by a Greenlandic artist. At the time, Storch was also the youngest artist ever selected. That record has now been broken by Lyse, who was born in 1993.
The criteria for choosing artists for national pavilions in Venice vary greatly from one country to the next. In some cases, the national pavilion essentially serves as a reward and homage to seasoned artists after long international careers. For instance, over the past thirty years, the British Pavilion has exclusively featured artists born in the 1960s or earlier – an aspect recently pointed out by Andrew Durbin in Frieze, where he called for the pavilion to be awarded to a young artist next time.
By contrast, the current committees behind Denmark’s representation in Venice have not focused particularly on international careers or a long track record of institutional solo exhibitions. The strategy of selecting young artists for the Danish Pavilion is also representative in the sense that it reflects a Danish art scene where, in recent years, major museums have been unafraid to host solo shows by very young artists.
Not all pavilions have announced their artists for the 61st Venice Biennale yet. And while we now know the identity of the artist chosen for the Danish Pavilion, the announcement provides little detail. The press release includes no images of the artist’s works and no information about the pavilion’s concept or content. Also, it simply states that the curator for the pavilion will be announced later.
However, we already know that in 2026, the Austrian Pavilion will feature Florentina Holzinger, while Canada will showcase Abbas Akhavan. France will present Yto Barrada, and just thirty steps away, audiences will find art by Maja Malou Lyse in the Danish Pavilion.
