“Regarding Denmark”

Don’t be fooled by the title; this is not a routine survey highlighting the particularities of a local art practice. Rather, the show takes Denmark—a country that has lately been caught in the crossfire of several sociopolitical confrontations—as its point of departure, using internal situations as a platform from which to gather insights into the current “crisis” of the European welfare state. The growing instability of social relationships is boldly announced by a giant 2002 poster by Superflex reading “FOREIGNERS, PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US ALONE WITH THE DANES!”; next to this piece, Jens Haaning’s ordinary wall-mounted clock displays Baghdad time. Jakob Boeskov’s installation My Doomsday Weapon, 2002–04, offers an archive of the artist’s undercover participation in China’s first international weapons fair, while the Chamber of Public Secrets’ Animation & Activism, 2005, engages issues of war, terror, and money, complete with an Eminem sound track. Henrik Plenge Jakobsen’s Maersk 2005 Sealand, 2005, a Maersk ship built out of Legos, highlights the coercive force of capitalism by merging two of Denmark’s most powerful corporations. Elsewhere, Jørgen Michaelsen’s multilayered installation uses enigmatic image and text to deconstruct the Nordic social model. Instead of emphasizing the particular and the local, the fifteen artists in the show—all Danish or Denmark–based—confront broader issues testing the limits of the social democratic state, especially in European countries whose national identity is built around welfare and public policies.