Yeah, Even More Art #HogsAbroad

Based on my time here, I am very happy to report that the arts are very much alive and well in Copenhagen. There is a vibrant scene of artists in this city who want to push people’s senses of what is and isn’t acceptable in the art world. Contemporary art has always had this reputation, but it seems especially evident here.

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A couple of weekends ago, I took advantage of my all-zone train pass to ride up north to Humlebæk to go to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. The setting along the coast is beautiful and serene with a natural landscape enveloping the campus. The space reminded me a lot of Crystal Bridges Museum of Modern Art in its attention to melding with its environment, except this building felt like it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright with its wooden beams and large rectangular glass windows.

The featured exhibit was made up of Op Art, optical illusion art that is only meant to mess with the eyes rather than contain any narrative. It certainly caused my eyes to feel like melting butter on more than one occasion.

Another exhibit focused on video art, including one panoramic room with multiple people singing a John Lennon song in sync in their own individual ways, even if it sometimes went out of tune.

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My Arts LLC also had some of our own visits to some art hotspots in the city. I’ve walked by a certain church near the shopping district before with no second thought. After all, there’s lots of old churches here. However, it turns out that this church (for which I don’t have pics) is actually the Nikolaj Art Museum, a refurbished space now used primarily for video art exhibits. The main display focused on virtual reality exhibits. We were told to download an app with VR videos, insert our phones into a cardboard VR headset, and then go to certain marked spaces in the museum for the true VR exhibit. The surprisingly immersive videos ranged from some first-person perspectives of waking up in bed with a lover to jumping off a building. I probably looked like a dingus while moving my head around with my goggles on, but hey, it’s for the art!

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The next “exhibit” we went to was a great example of what I consider to be highly pretentious contemporary “art.” We woke up at the unpleasantly early time of 10:00am on a dreary Saturday to go to Vesterbro to see an orange room. No joke, it was just a small little studio that with walls that were painted bright orange. That’s it. When we had the opportunity to meet the young curators who ran the studio space, I did have the opportunity to (passive aggressively) ask what they considered to be good art and their selection process. They told us that they were always looking for pieces and shows that really grabbed their attention and interested them. Well, they need to reevaluate what they find interesting because this orange room is a great example of what the average person thinks of as pretentious modern art.

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Fortunately, to finish this week, I had the pleasure to see the Danish National Symphony at the Copenhagen DR Koncerthuset.

I originally came for Schumann’s Cello Concerto, Op. 129, but I ended up being blown away by Ravel’s 1912 ballet, Daphnie and Chloe. It is reassuring to know that great art can be found in many places in many forms. For me, at least, the sound of music still trumps any stroke of paint in my mind.

This week, I was in London for a long study tour, so expect a new video sometime next week. 

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Read more from Jake at http://jakernaut.tumblr.com/
To find out more about the DIS Copenhagen, Denmark program, visit http://disabroad.org/copenhagen/