søren martinsen
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besat landskab / occupied landscape, kunsthal nord 2017
The exhibition uses the north of Jutland, Denmark as its inspiration with regards to landscape and cultural history. It is a kind of historcial tour of the north, focussing on the famous artists that over the course of time have changed Danish history via their stay and influence in this particular area. The theme is especially focussing on certain heavily influential artist’s colonies: the Skagen painters are surely very important for the area, but also other events stand out iconically, namely the artist Peter Louis-Jensen and his activists’ occupation of the Hjardemål church in Thy in 1970. This happening lead more or less directly to the demise of the Thy Camp, also called The New Society, one of the most seminal and visionary potitical and sociological moments of the early 70’s hippie movement. The exhibition radically problematized the effect the artists have on the areas they, for various reasons, chose to inhabit and affect: Is this influence always of a good naure, or does the seemingly unanimous vote in favour of art being “universally good” veil a more complex mechanics which coes into play when radically different cultural group exerts its influence on perhaps more traditional societies?