New acquisitions and donations 2016-2024
Special exhibition
In 2024, Holstebro "a city of culture" will be celebrating its 750th anniversary. On this occasion, it is a great pleasure for Holstebro Kunstmuseum to present a special exhibition with a wide selection of the works that have been incorporated into its permanent collection over the past seven and a half years through new acquisitions and donations. Many of the works in the exhibition have not previously been shown to the public.
The collection focus of Holstebro Kunstmuseum is on significant trends in Danish and international art and crafts from the 1930s to the present day. Since its inception, the museum has collected a relatively small number of artists, who on the other hand are comprehensively represented, often retrospectively. Acquiring new works for the museum’s existing art collection is one of the museum’s core tasks, pursuant to the Danish Museum Act.
Every acquisition at Holstebro Kunstmuseum is made with due regard to the main themes of the collection and the museum’s retrospective and consolidating ambitions, as well as a national view in relation to the other public art collections in Denmark.
Peter Linde Busk, Lost in La Mancha II, 2018. Photo: Eric Tschernow
At the exhibition, the public will thus be able to see aspects of an artist’s production which have not hitherto been represented at the museum – such as an early and extremely rare oil painting by Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, who is otherwise known to the public as one of Denmark’s foremost sculptors. Naturalistically oriented bird motifs by John Olsen are also included from the beginning of the artist’s career, while a number of acquisitions and donations by Peter Linde Busk and Kirsten Christensen mean that visitors can now receive a complete impression of their overall oeuvre.
Consolidating acquisitions of this kind have also been made of works by the ceramist Gertrud Vasegaard and the internationally recognised artist Tal R, of whose work Holstebro Kunstmuseum owns one of the most extensive and representative collections in the world.
Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, Forest Scene, 1930s
Kirsten Christensen, The Sex, 1981. Photo: Ole Mortensen
New artist in the collection
Over the past seven and a half years, Holstebro Kunstmuseum’s collection of contemporary art has been expanded with such artists as Daniel Richter, considered to be one of Germany’s most important contemporary artists, Uffe Isolotto, who recently represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 2022, and who works across the boundaries of artistic media with the technological body as principal motif, and Marie Lund, whose concentrated and deliberately understated works may be viewed in the context of the sculptural line in the collection, which also includes Astrid Noack. The visual artist and writer Amalie Smith is also included in the collection, with works that, in the form of digital weaving, are in historical dialogue and harmony with the art museum’s existing collection of textile art from near and far.
Daniel Richter, GONZO, 2015. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin
Marie Lund, Stills, 2015; Torso, 2014; Hand Full, 2014. Photo: Ole Mortensen
Amalie Smith, LOOMING (Bugs & Interfaces), 2022. Photo: David Stjernholm
The Forecourt and the Museum Garden
The museum’s outdoor areas have also received a significant artistic boost in recent years. In particular, the museum has been enriched with a new forecourt – an artistic
ornamental paving of rare character by Martin Erik Andersen, consisting of a 12-star pattern inspired by the mosaic tiles in the Ibrahim Agha al-Mustahfizan mausoleum in the Aqsunqur Mosque in Cairo. In the sculpture garden of the museum, site-specific works by Marie Lund and the world-famous US conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner have received a permanent place, along with a sculptural work by Uffe Isolotto and a bronze relief by Peter Linde Busk.
Ornamental artistic surfacing of the museums' forecourt by Martin Erik Andersen (2019). Photo: Thomas Jensen, Bubble
Lawrence Weiner, MATTER AS WE KNOW IT + RED PAINT + YELLOW MUD + GREEN SLIME & BURRIED WHERE THE EARTH IS SOFT ENOUGH. 1995. Photo: David Stjernholm
Uffe Isolotto, Universal Serial Bus, 2018
World-class art and art from around the world
Holstebro Kunstmuseum is the only museum in Denmark to illuminate through its collection the links between Danish and international art, and art by non-European peoples and civilizations. As an update to this global aesthetic collection track – here with specific reference to Poul Holm-Olsen’s extensive African collection at the museum – Holstebro Kunstmuseum has acquired a central work by the significant Nigerian-born visual artist Toyin Ojih Odutola, which deals with the division between African traditions and the modern conditions of life. The acquisition is thus related to works by other cross-cultural artists in the collection, including Martin Erik Andersen and Emil Westman Hertz. As a whole, the museum’s collection thereby comprises a meeting place for different eras, continents and forms of expression, where we can experience a universal, common human will to interpret and artistically process our surroundings and the human body in accordance with our own cultural traditions and visions for new departures.
Emil Westman Hertz, The City, 2016. Photo: David Stjernholm
The museum’s philosophy and perspective
The core and cornerstone of every museum is its permanent collection. At Holstebro Kunstmuseum, we view collection work and our acquisition strategies as being closely linked with research and communication, understood in a broad sense as the production of special exhibitions, as well as teaching and learning activities. The collection’s qualities also allow options in the form of work loans and exhibition collaborations with other art museums around the world.
In its capacity as a guardian of Danish cultural heritage, the collection of a state-recognised museum is common property – it belongs to all of us. The collection work is decidedly future-oriented, as the acquired works cannot be sold again, and are only in very rare cases deaccessioned. As a museum, we have in other words a statutory obligation to preserve the works for posterity and make them accessible in various exhibitions. It is our hope that the exhibition New Acquisitions and Donations 2016-2024 will convey as much joy and positive experiences to the public as the daily management of the collection does for us.
Tal R, Red Flag. 2016. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
Artists at the exhibition
Martin Erik Andersen (DK, b. 1964); Peter Linde Busk (DK, b. 1973); Kirsten Christensen (DK, b. 1943); Gutte Eriksen (DK, 1918-2008); Emil Westman Hertz (DK, 1978-2016); Olivia Holm-Møller (DK, 1875-1970); Uffe Isolotto (DK, b. 1976); Marie Lund (DK, b. 1976); Sonja Ferlov Mancoba (DK, 1911-1984); Jonathan Meese (DE, b. 1970); Albert Mertz (DK, 1920-1990); Lisbeth Nielsen (DK, b. 1952); Toyin Ojih Odutola (NGR/US, b. 1985); John Olsen (DK, 1938-2019); Poul Holm Olsen (DK, 1920-1990); Daniel Richter (DE, b. 1962); Amalie Smith (DK, b. 1985); Tal R (DK, b. 1967); Gertrud Vasegaard (DK, 1913-2007); Åge Vogel-Jørgensen (DK, 1888-1964); Lawrence Weiner (US, 1942-2021) og Inge Lise Westman (DK, b. 1945) as well as pre-Columbian ceramics by an unknown artist.
Jonathan Meese, Elephant Man träumt von Dir, 2007
Aknowledgements
We thank the artists, private individuals and other supporters who have donated works to the museum in 2016-2024, as well as the public and private funds who made the acquisitions possible. All of them have thereby contributed to the museum’s development and the quality of the museum experience:
The exhibition is supported by
The core and cornerstone of every museum is its permanent collection. At Holstebro Kunstmuseum, we view collection work as being closely linked with research and communication, understood in a broad sense as the production of special exhibitions, as well as teaching and learning activities. (...)
We hope that the exhibition will convey as much joy and positive experiences to the public as the daily management of the collection does for us.
