Read the trade magazine Billedkunstneren no. 1, 2026
Artist-run exhibition spaces constitute a vibrant and necessary growth layer in the Danish art field. Here, encounters between new art and new audiences occur, here formats are experimented with, and here many artists find a free space where practices can develop without commercial or institutional pressure.
In this issue of Billedkunstneren, we have visited four very different artist-run exhibition spaces – M100, Ved skoven, Ringsted Galleriet and platform BUNKER – to show the breadth of their practices. But what they have in common is an insistence on opening up art and finding new ways to meet the audience, while also creating cohesion in the cities and local communities in which they have established themselves.
"Many artist-run venues have a rare ability to create relationships that do not disappear when an exhibition is packed up. They work patiently and persistently — not only to present works, but to create contexts where art can work in everyday life," as Marie Thams, the president of the Danish Association of Visual Artists, writes in the magazine's editorial.
In another article, Kathrin Maurer, professor at SDU and Fellow at the Nordic Humanities Center, talks about the need for 'cultural preparedness' in a time of crises and imminent war. Art and culture play an important role, because by creating or engaging in art and culture, communities can emerge, and this often helps people to hold on to life:
“Art can highlight the middle tones. Art can be ambivalent. That is a strength. Because it creates a slow space where we can stop, sense and reflect. A space that contrasts with the many minutes and hours we spend scrolling down our phones and being confirmed in the often very unvarnished attitudes that are our echo chambers,” she says.
In this issue's Commentary, visual artist and member of the visual arts council in Middelfart Municipality, Cecilia de Jong, writes that although the visual arts councils talk about quality, community and education, they all too often lose sight of the work when it is revealed.
"Good intentions fall to the ground if they are not accompanied by strong relationship skills and a well-thought-out before–during–after. It is in everyday life – not at the opening – that art should work," she writes.
In the artist's workshop this time we meet Thilo Frank, who has his workshop in Bavaria, while this issue's new member is Peter Ringgaard, who after a long film career resumed painting during the corona lockdowns, and now works alternately from Thailand, Tisvildeleje and Copenhagen.
Enjoy.