Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Simon Evans – In the Arena of Vanguard Cities (2015)
- Specifications
- Description
- The Maker
- Brand:Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Denmark
- Country: Printed in Denmark
- SKU: LA-11522-FJ
- Material: Printed on paper.
- Dimensions:23.4" x 34.6"
Evans lived out a boyhood dream as a skater in San Francisco, then started writing and broke through as a visual artist in 2003. Evans works with text-based collages—often composed of short poetic sentences and drawings. Simon Evans captures the poetry of everyday life, to which he can have an ironic distance.
Illumination was a lavish presentation of contemporary art from around the world. With works by Gerhard Richter, William Kentridge, Cindy Sherman, Alex Da Corte, Franz West, Catherine Opie, Jeff Wall and many more—including several young debutants in the museum's collection—Illumination became the museum's largest presentation of new art in the collection to date.
From the beginning, the founder, Knud W. Jensen, intended for the museum to be a home for modern Danish art. But after only a few years he changed course, and instead of being a predominantly Danish collection, Louisiana became an international museum with many internationally renowned works.
Louisiana's close contact and collaboration with the international arts and cultural milieu has since been one of the museum's greatest strengths. And also one of the main reasons that it has been possible for Louisiana to present an exhibition program that has resonated so strongly with the public over the years. Louisiana has thus achieved a standing as one of the world's most respected exhibition venues, and in the future, it will be able to attract exhibitions and artists at a level that few other museums—either in Denmark or abroad—can match.
Knud W. Jensen put into action many of the period's visionary ideas about modern museum operation, including a desire for art to have a wide audience. It has always been the view at Louisiana that art is not just for an elite but includes experiences and visions for the many.
Why is it called Louisiana?
Many people wonder about the name of the museum. The short explanation is this—a nobleman and his three wives.
Knud W. Jensen chose to "take over" the name of the country house that he later converted to a museum. The property had been built and named in 1855 by Alexander Brun (1814-93), who was an officer and Master of the Royal Hunt and who married three women who were all named Louise.
Here at Louisiana, he was a pioneer in beekeeping and the cultivation of fruit trees.
From the beginning, it was Knud W. Jensen's vision to create a museum with soul, where the public could encounter artwork—not as something pretentious, but rather something that spoke directly to the viewer. And he emphasized the need for "supplementary content" that could help bring alive and enrich the environment: The more opportunities for experience that the program offers, the more Louisiana lives up to its idea—to be a 'musical meeting place' and a milieu that is engaged in contemporary life.
—Knud W. Jensen