Astrid Marie Christiansen, Linoleum floor for Bakkeskolen in Esbjerg, 2019. Photo: Anne Trap-Lind

What we work for

Danish Visual Artists (BKF) is Denmark's professional organization for visual artists with 2.315 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 climate

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. 

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Art in the municipalities

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.

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A sustainable working life and good conditions in the industry

Danish 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. 

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Equality and diversity in the arts

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.

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Continuing education and artistic research

Strengthen further and further education opportunities for visual artists

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Visions and policies

- BKF speaks for the artists and art

Read e.g. here about BKF's action plans during and after COVID-19

BKF's plan for the arts during covid-19

BKF's action plan for visual arts 2019

Art in construction

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

Art in the education system

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 throughout the country

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

The value of art

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

Danish 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 magazine 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.

Danish Visual Artists (BKF) was founded in 1969 by a merger between the Association of Painters, Danish Sculptors and Graphic Artists. 

READ MORE ABOUT BKF'S HISTORY (pdf)

Latest news

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Volunteers – or professionals who work for free?

In Ireland they dare. Do Danish politicians also dare to invest in the arts?

'Equality in communities is the most important thing'

Åse Eg Jørgensen never considered applying to the Copenhagen Academy of Fine Arts. She had already found an artistic community among friends. Since then, self-organized collaborations have become a crucial part of her practice, because they give her the freedom to create a framework with trust, friendship and co-creation at the center.

'Together with you I feel the importance of my artistic practice'

In a generational meeting, Birgit Bjerre and Andrea Ostenfeldt Nielsen have found an equal space for conversations about art, intuition, and the resistance to adapting to the expectations of the art world.

Summer vacation in the BKF secretariat

The office in Vesterbro will be closed from June 25th until August 2nd. We wish everyone a good summer!

10 questions for the artist

Welcome to 10 Questions for the Artist, where we talk to a visual artist about inspiration, works and how it all began. In this issue, we meet visual and performance artist Sophie Dupont, who asks the question: What does it mean to be alive? For her, the answer begins in the body, in the breath and in everything we otherwise take for granted.

'I want to keep going. I don't have enough time.'

100-year-old Grete Balle has had an open and experimental approach to art throughout her life, but was slow to call herself an artist.

'I am a glitch in the system'

Algorithmic artist Ada Ada Ada uses her body to challenge tech giants. She wants to give power back to the human and away from the machine.

The artist's workshop

How do you arrange yourself as an artist? And what does it look like where the works are created? Visual artist Astrid Specht Seeberg tells us.

1 + 1 = 3

Since 1999, the artist duo J&K have created performative universes where materials, places and people become co-narrators. Now they are current with the exhibition Parterapi at SMK, where new productions, older works and an archive are brought together based on more than 25 years of joint practice.

New issue of Fagbladet Biledkunstneren

The new issue has the theme of collaboration in art. Read about artist duos, generational meetings and collaborative practices. Also meet algorithm artist Ada Ada Ada, who challenges Big Tech with her art, and Grete Balle, who is still an active artist at 100 years old.

BKF at the 2026 People's Meeting

The Danish Association of Visual Artists will again participate this year at the Folkemødet on Bornholm with debate events on art, AI, copyright and cultural financing. BKF's representative Marie Thams will participate in several conversations and panel debates during the days. Below you will find an overview of the program.

Welcome to Zenia Stampe as the new Minister of Culture

The new government highlights art and culture as a cornerstone of Danish society. This is positive, but if the government seriously believes that art is democratic infrastructure, better conditions are needed for the country's artists. The visual arts must therefore have a clear place in the 2040 vision for Danish cultural life.

BKF is behind a new Fair Practice Code for artists

BKF gets new editor and political consultant

The Danish Association of Visual Artists welcomes a new communications manager and editor as well as a new political consultant and project manager.

Art underground

From farm bunker to art platform: Between private and public space, platform BUNKER creates space for hybrid art, local communities and new formats.