Banu Cennetoğlu examines Danish news media in her first solo exhibition in Denmark

Banu Cennetoğlu
BEING SAFE IS SCARY
19 March – 10 August 2025
Opening: 20 March

This March, Kunsthal Charlottenborg opens the first presentation in Denmark of Istanbul-based visual artist Banu Cennetoğlu. Arranged in connection with the documentary film festival CPH:DOX, the exhibition showcases Cennetoğlu’s keen interest in how the production and distribution of text and image-based information shape our world.

Press preview: Wednesday 19 March, 11.00-12.00
Kunsthal Charlottenborg invites the press to a preview of the exhibition, where artist Banu Cennetoğlu and curators Henriette Bretton-Meyer and Katarina Stenbeck will be present to introduce the exhibition. Cennetoğlu will be available for interviews in Copenhagen 13-20 March. To notify us of your attendance and/or request interviews, please contact: jmh@kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk.

After the press preview, the exhibition will be open to the public in connection with the opening of CPH:DOX on 19 March. The exhibition opening will take place on 20 March, the programme will be published in early March.

Banu Cennetoğlu (b. 1970, Ankara) has lived in Paris, New York and Amsterdam before settling in Istanbul in 2005. In her artistic practice she explores the political dimensions of social and cultural hierarchies. Cennetoğlu has exhibited in prestigious international institutions including documenta 14, the Liverpool Biennale, the Istanbul Biennale, the Berlin Biennale and she represented Turkey together with Ahmet Öğüt at the 53. Venice Biennale in 2009.

BEING SAFE IS SCARY at Kunsthal Charlottenborg presents a series of works that intertwine personal and official histories within a shared political space. The exhibition title originates from one of Cennetoğlu’s works; a photograph of the phrase appearing as graffiti on a wall in Athens. The ambiguous statement raises questions such as who can be safe, and at what cost?

Cennetoğlu often engages in comprehensive efforts collecting, cataloguing and archiving materials – efforts which then manifest in tightly composed works with far-reaching perspectives. For the exhibition, she has produced the work 29.01.2025 presenting a copy of every single printed edition of newspapers and weekly publications issued in Denmark on 29 January 2025. By collecting, cataloguing, and displaying all newspapers published in a given country on a specific day, Cennetoğlu examines how news media prioritise and disseminate information – what is included, what is omitted, and how stories are told and for whom. The work is not only about major headlines: special supplements, non-news-related content, as well as typography, layout, and colour choices also demonstrate how the world is sorted, arranged and represented through the medium of print journalism. 29.01.2025 will be presented alongside a selection of previous editions of the work from other countries, forming part of a slowly expanding archive of print media’s production of reality

The more visually striking work right? consists of bunches of gold letter balloons addressing the relationship between ideals and realpolitik. Each bunch spells out an article from the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For each time the work is exhibited, a new article is added until none remain. At the exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, the balloons will spell out Articles 21, 22, 23 and 24, which concern democratic participation, social security, labour rights and leisure. At the opening of the exhibition, right? will look like a grand gesture of celebration, but as the helium gradually escapes from the balloons, the tribute becomes increasingly deflated. In a time marked by war, climate disasters and political uncertainty, the work invites reflection on who is in fact able to celebrate the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and who has yet to gain recognition as a human being entitled to fall within the scope of its ideals.

The exhibition also features a film work by Cennetoğlu spanning a full 127 hours. Composed of thirteen titles 1 January 1970 – 21 March 2018 · H O W B E I T · Guilty feet have got no rhythm · Keçiboynuzu · AS IS · MurMur · I measure every grief I meet · Taq u Raq · A piercing Comfort it affords · Stitch · Made in Fall · Yes. But. We had a golden heart. · One day soon I’m gonna tell the moon about the crying game, the work is a visual tour de force through the artist’s digitalised archive presenting, in chronological order, all photos and videos from her mobile phones, computers, cameras and external hard drives. Cennetoğlu describes the work as ‘introspective’, as it documents a period of her life. We see her as an artist, as a mother, and as a daughter, following her artistic productions, exhibition openings, hospital visits, demonstrations, children’s birthday parties, and how everyday activities intertwine with political events. The work constitutes a self-reflexive examination of the implications of our present-day image production.

The exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, curated by Henriette Bretton-Meyer and Katarina Stenbeck, move from broad societal issues to the more personal sphere. Critical investigations of the daily press, Europe's migration flows, and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights are brought into a dialogue with an extensive private image archive and monochrome drawings, thus connecting everyday life’s small and large events with urgent global questions.

BEING SAFE IS SCARY is part of HUMAN:RIGHTS – a new collaboration between Kunsthal Charlottenborg, CPH:DOX and Human Rights Watch Denmark which, with support from the Frececo Foundation, will focus on human rights in the coming years. The collaboration includes art exhibitions and thematic film programmes, which are supplemented by a large number of talks and debates as well as teaching courses for school classes.

The exhibition is also supported by the Augustinus Foundation, Danish Arts Foundation, and the Obel Family Foundation.

About the artist
Banu Cennetoğlu lives and works in Istanbul. Her previous solo exhibitions include: Sylvia Kouvali, Athens (2024); Void, Derry (2023); K21 Ständehaus, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2019); Sculpture Center, New York (2019); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2018); Bonner Kunstverein (2015); Salonul de proiecte, Bucharest (2013); Kunsthalle Basel (2011). Along many group shows, she has participated in the Berlin, Istanbul, Liverpool, Gwangju, Athens and Venice Biennials, as well as Manifesta 8, Murcia; documenta14, Athens/Kassel and 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh.

She is the founder of BAS, an, artist-run space in Istanbul dedicated to artists’ books and printed matter. Cennetoğlu is currently an advisor at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam.

Pracatical information
Banu Cennetoğlu: BEING SAFE IS SCARY
19 March – 10 August 2025
Press preview: 19 March, 11.00-12.00
Opening: 20 March
Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Kongens Nytorv 1, 1050 Copenhagen K
Further info here

For more information about the exhibition, please contact:

Henriette Bretton-Meyer
Acting Director and Curator, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
hbm@kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk / (+45) 3374 4680

Press contact

Jeannie Møller Haltrup
Head of Communications, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
jmh@kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk / (+45) 3374 4629

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