ATLAS
by Farshad Farzankia
May 7 – October 23
With his boundary-seeking, boundary-breaking and innovative art, JF Willumsen has always aroused wonder and excitement. In his time but to an even greater extent today. From May 7 to October 23, Willumsens Museum – in the spirit of Willumsens – breaks down the boundaries completely when the museum invites the internationally recognized artistic rising star Farshad Farzankia to transform the museum park into a 24-hour exhibition area. He does this with the exhibition ATLAS, which consists of works that have all been produced especially for Willumsens Museum, and have therefore never been shown before. Indoors, but with an open view of the park, the large outdoor surfaces are accompanied by a number of new and older works in a collage-inspired hanging. The exhibition is the first of a total of three park exhibitions that will adorn the museum park in very different ways over the next three seasons.
Farshad Farzankia, born 1980 in Tehran, Iran. Lives and works in Copenhagen.
Across canvases
Farzankia's work is characterized by a colorful abundance of painterly energy that spreads undisturbed across large canvases or finds form in simple wooden structures. His artistic work has achieved great national and international recognition in just a few years and is based on a great artistic generosity, where inspiration and artistic exchange flow freely. For the exhibition at Willumsens Museum, Farzankia will make the park and museum his canvas and create painted works that spread across the museum's park area in spatial constructions and completely within the museum's doors.
Popular culture and a picturesque image stream
With a background in the graphic universe, Farzankia works in simple shapes and figures, where color is the primary mediator of emotion and movement. The works come to life on a rich backdrop of references to both art history, religious and cultural narratives mixed with film, advertising, literature, poetry and popular cultural phenomena. The ongoing immediacy in his works finds its kinship in Willumsen's collage-like style and intense focus on creating an effect on the viewer. In Farzankia, the immediate effect is unavoidable, but upon closer inspection reveals a deep flow of images that formulates questions about origin, inspiration, image-formed memory and personal formation.
Out into the park, into art
ATLAS is the first of a total of three outdoor exhibitions that will break the physical boundaries of Willumsens Museum from spring 2022 and for three years to come. Through a new ambitious outdoor exhibition concept, the three leading and internationally recognized contemporary artists Farshad Farzankia, Camilla Berner and Marie Kølbæk Iversen will take turns transforming the museum park into a 24-hour exhibition area with exhibitions from May to September for a three-year period. In an artistically playful format, contemporary art is put at the forefront outside the museum walls, where it will frame meetings and dialogue with and between a broad audience.
The exhibition is supported by:
The Obel Family Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation.
