New acquisitions and donations 2016-2024

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}