The Association of Visual Artists (BKF) is Denmark's professional organization for visual artists with 2.000 members.
The association's main purpose is to safeguard the professional, economic, social and legal interests of artists and to promote the role of art everywhere in society. BKF protects the artistic freedom of the individual artist and respect for the visual arts in general.
Here you can read more about our special cases.
Art and the visual artist have their natural role in the climate fight and in the development of new climate solutions. BKF works purposefully to make art a natural part of the green transition.
Art brings life and development to local communities, creates new communities and increases the quality of life in everyday life. That is why BKF is working to ensure that more municipalities have an art policy and are strengthened in their work with the professional visual arts.
The Association of Visual Artists works to ensure good conditions for the visual arts profession. By articulating the value of art in society, by contributing to research in the industry and by supporting measures that directly improve the artists' conditions.
For BKF, equality is not only about equal conditions for the sexes, but also about equality in relation to other visible and invisible markers of identity. Eg. racialisation, religion, sexual orientation, social class, age, functional variations etc. That is why BKF works to create equality and diversity in the art world.
Strengthen further and further education opportunities for visual artists
Use the visual arts better and more in construction: Expand the Decoration circular so that it also applies to municipal, regional and public-private builders, and involve the artists already in the project phase
Employ artists as consultants on construction projects, so that art is included from the start
Strengthen the visual arts in teacher education
Make visual arts a compulsory subject at all levels of primary school
Give municipal art schools and Visual Arts Basic Course (BGK) their own legislation – just like the music schools and Musical Basic Course
Support the country's three art academies and give them sustainable finances
Make the Huskunstnerordningen permanent - and expand the scheme so that more children and young people have the opportunity to encounter professional art during their school days
Art creates new communities in the countryside and in the cities - give all citizens throughout the country the opportunity to meet the professional visual arts in everyday life
Put smaller towns on the art world map: empower local workshops with facilities for professional artists
Art is vital for the individual and for democracy - art creates space for new realizations, reflection and criticism in a time characterized by accelerating image and information flows. Therefore, the working conditions of professional artists must be strengthened.
Art creates economic value – a diverse and well-functioning artistic life benefits the whole of society, also financially
The Association of Visual Artists (BKF) is Denmark's professional organization for professional visual artists with approximately 2.000 members. The association's main purpose is to look after visual artists' professional, economic, social and legal interests and to promote as wide an application of visual artists' work as possible.
For this work, BKF has a secretariat, a board of directors and the trade journal Billedkunstneren, which is published four times a year.
In addition to the traditional art forms of painting, sculpture and graphics, BKF also represents practitioners within the newer visual art forms such as multimedia, photography and installation. The association has admission criteria to ensure that the members have a professional work within the visual arts.
BKF is, among other things, represented in the Danish Arts Foundation' board of representatives, Danish Artists' Council, municipal visual arts council, Danish Image Authors, Copydan, the Swedish Libraries Agency as well as in several international consultations, e.g. Nordic Art Association.
The Association of Visual Artists (BKF) was founded in 1969 by a merger between the Association of Painters, Danish Sculptors and Graphic Artists.