EKORUM
From June 10 to December 30, 2018, we will be showing the exhibition EKKORUM, curated by the visual artist Christian Vind. The exhibition will be displayed throughout the museum and will only include works from the artists' collections. Works by Willumsen can instead be experienced at Arken's exhibition "JF Willumsen - colors and stripes" until January 13, 2019.
“Few people are aware that in addition to the artist's own works, the JF Willumsens Museum also houses a large collection of older European art, antiques, icons and paintings by his contemporaries – a total of approximately 2000 objects.”
Willumsen imagined this collection hanging in his imagined museum as a echo room and called it an “appendix” or an addition. When the museum opened in 1957, Willumsen’s collection was finished and hidden away in a warehouse. Only a few times in the last sixty years has it been the subject of special attention. With “EKKORUM. Thorvaldsen, Willumsen. Jorn and their collections” we look at the collection with a new eye and connect it with selected parts of the collections of Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) and Asger Jorn (1914-1973). Common to the three artists is their almost manic building of extensive collections of art, from Northern Europe to East Asia, and their desire for these to be accessible to the public.
EKKORUM is curated by the visual artist Christian Vind. The exhibition is displayed throughout the museum and contains only works from the artists' collections. Willumsen's works can be experienced at Arken's exhibition “JF Willumsen – colors and stripes” until January 13, 2019.
The three collections offer alternative ideas about which images and objects are significant, and are based on a playful and investigative logic: Thorvaldsen collected German and Danish romantic contemporary painting with kitsch motifs. Willumsen believed that older art was important for the present; he bought fake Leonardos and Rembrandts and restored the works in his collection with visible overpainting in his own style. Jorn collected with the aim of creating a personal art history that did not focus on masterpieces, but on wholes and contexts.
The criteria for including something in the “artists’ collections” have been more personal than is the case with museum collections, which must justify their purchasing policy and base it on a recognized perception of what constitutes artistic and historical value. The collections tell something about the artists’ vision of art and shed new light on their own practice. At the same time, they invite EKORUM to reconsider forgotten artists, anonymous works, folk art and copies and reassess what is artistically interesting without preconceived opinions.
For their indispensable financial support for the exhibition and the research anthology, heartfelt thanks are extended to the New Carlsberg Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation, the 15. Juni Foundation, the Krogager Foundation, the Knud Højgaard Foundation, the Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation, the Oda and Hans Svenningsen Foundation, the Ernst and Vibeke Husmans Foundation, the Beckett Foundation, the Arne V. Schlesch Foundation and the Supreme Court Attorney L. Zeuthen's Memorial Endowment.
In addition, we would also like to warmly thank our partners MTAB Fine Art Shipping, Country Manager, Jørgen Jul Jensen, and Niels Poulsen, Proventus Grafisk for their support for the work signs.
