Copenhagen Contemporary Exhibition Program 2023

A wealth of great art experiences awaits at Copenhagen Contemporary in the new year. We look forward to presenting an exhibition program embracing a wide variety of artistic manifestations – from aesthetics and technology to fashion design and social debate. In 2023 CC is showcasing some of the biggest stars of the contemporary art world, while providing a space for emerging artists pushing art in new directions.

We start the new year by presenting a recent aesthetic phenomenon spreading across art and fashion. Beautiful Repair shows a new generation of artists and fashion designers making stunning, experimental creations, using recycled materials, dead stock and sophisticated mending techniques. The repair becomes ornamentation giving new life to clothes. Spotlighting fashion as communication, the exhibition questions the meaning we assign to the things we surround ourselves with.

Spreading from CC’s biggest halls to the Copenhagen cityscape, the big summer exhibition, Yet, It Moves!, explores movement in all its forms – from the orbits of the planets to the microorganisms moving inside us. Nothing stands still, as quantum physicists and artists come together to examine how we are all part of bigger patterns of movement, even if we don’t give it much thought in our busy day-to-day lives.

We kick off the first part of a new, three-year partnership with the Glyptotek museum with the Iranian-born artist Abbas Akhavan’s first solo exhibition in Scandinavia. A singular, alluring poetry permeates Akhavan’s sculptures, which are often made of natural materials. Adding new perspectives to the cultural heritage of the ancient world and its importance today, the show brings together archaeological artefacts and new contemporary art. The exhibition will be shown simultaneously at CC and the Glyptotek.

We wrap up the year with a presentation by Hannah Toticki, a breakout talent on the Danish art scene, in her biggest solo exhibition to date. Made specifically for CC, Remote Storage of the Gods invites the audience to join in an exploration of the status of ethics in a time without a shared sense of sacredness that is bigger than ourselves. New divinities created by the artist are embodied in the exhibition under a sheltering cloud of angel’s wings. If we were asked to articulate ten commandments today, what would they be? Visit CC’s exhibition and give us your best shot!

As always, CC’s exhibition hosts will engage visitors in a conversation about the art, while CC Studio provides creative workshops for the whole family and all ages. In addition, we are looking forward to a string of events which during the year will invite you to everything from conversation, reflection and celebration. Through a series of new event formats, we present music and performances created by young artists with great international potential who create new and alternative approaches to the art.

Discover the exciting 2023 program below!

Welcome to CC
Marie Laurberg
Director

Beautiful Repair
Mending in Art and Fashion
1 February – 3 September 2023
A new aesthetic phenomenon is spreading across the worlds of art and fashion. Mending and recycling are gaining creative momentum, producing stunning experimental creations. Recycled materials, dead stock and sophisticated mending techniques beget rewarding stories and ornamentation giving new life to clothes and providing fertile ground for novel aesthetic expressions. The exhibition Beautiful Repair focuses on the exchange between two creative fields coming together in an exploration of clothes, our “second skin”. How do we communicate with our surroundings through fashion, and what importance do we assign to the objects we surround ourselves with – as a society and in our personal lives?

Created in partnership with ALPHA, the exhibition shows works by a host of artists and fashion designers, some for the first time in Denmark: Zadie Xa, Rasmus Myrup, Elina Heilanen, Minna Palmqvist, Lee Mingwei, Marie Sloth-Rousing and Anna Wæhrens, Pia Camil, Idaliina Friman, Tenant of Culture, All-IN, Ella Morris, Kristine Sehested-Blad, Beatrice Stenmark and Rottingdean Bazaar.

Yet, It Moves!
12 May – 30 December 2023
Sprawling from the CC’s biggest halls to the Copenhagen cityscape, Yet, It Moves! focuses on movement in all its forms: the orbits of the planets, the rotation of the Earth, the movements of the body and the microorganisms teeming inside of us. Nothing in the universe stands still. Artists and scientists are working together to make images of movement above, around and within us. Featuring works by Cecilia Bengolea, Jenna Sutela, Nora Turato, Jakob Kudsk-Steensen and Black Quantum Futurism and others, Yet, It Moves!will unfold in CC’s three halls and in public spaces in Copenhagen. As part of the exhibition, the Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda (b. 1966) is presenting the full version of his magnum opus, data-verse.

The exhibition takes its title from a famous quote by Galileo, the pioneering astronomer who defended his theory of the Earth’s rotation to his dying day, saying at his execution, “Yet, it moves!” The project highlights the joint search of art and science for new understanding about the world and humanity.

The project is the result of a partnership between international and Danish artists and four leading research institutions spanning such fields as astrophysics and quantum physics, brain and cognitive research, anthropology and technology and performance studies: DARK at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen; Arts at CERN in Geneva; the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University; and ModLab (Digital Humanities Laboratory), Performance Studies, University of California.

Abbas Akhavan
23 June – 26 November 2023
In June, CC will open the first Scandinavian solo exhibition by Abbas Akhavan (b. 1977 in Tehran, Iran; lives and works in Montreal, Canada). Akhavan’s work ranges from site-specific installation to performance, drawing, sculpture and video. In highly alluring and poetic works, Akhavan picks up complex geopolitical narratives, investigating the historical, architectural and social structures of a specific area or place. Sourcing the Glyptotek’s rich collections of ancient Middle Eastern art, Akhavan presents a single exhibition spread across both institutions – from CC’s raw industrial spaces to the Glyptotek’s historical architecture.

The exhibition is the first in a series reflecting a three-year partnership between CC and the Glyptotek, employing international contemporary art to provide new perspectives on the cultural heritage of the ancient world and its importance today.

Hannah Toticki
Remote Storage of the Gods
3 October 2023 – 1 September 2024
Hannah Toticki (b. 1984) is a rising star in the Danish art world. Remote Storage of the Gods, the artist’s biggest solo exhibition to date, turns a spotlight on religion and faith. With humour, imagination and sincerity, Toticki asks what it means to live in a time without a shared sense of sacredness that is bigger than ourselves.

As religion become less present in society, the big questions in life are left to the individual. But in a time of crises and global challenges, it can be hard to navigate an unpredictable, uncontrollable world. Our times are marked by spiking stress, anxiety and outright mental illness, especially among young people.

In Remote Storage of the Gods, Toticki invites the audience to join a conversation about how to articulate a new sacredness that can help create more meaning in life. Preparing the exhibition, Toticki will involve groups of people, young and old, in workshops asking if religious rituals and norms are missing from our lives.

Press contact:
Ida Maj Ludvigsen, Head of PR & Communication
ida@cphco.org
+45 6021 9321

DOWNLOAD PRESS MATERIAL HERE: https://copenhagencontemporary.org/en/press/

Copenhagen Contemporary is in 2023 supported by:
Augustinusfonden, Bikubenfonden, Knud Højgaards Fond, Det Obelske Familiefond, Beckett-Fonden, Kulturministeriet, Københavns Kommune, Statens Kunstfond, Minister Erna Hamiltons Legat, Carlsbergs Mindelegat for Brygger J.C. Jacobsen, Goethe-Institut Dänemark, Refshaleøens Ejendomsselskab