PAK2 EN 018-033 OK v3mg3mv1_d PAK 018-033 OK E 12/12/16 11:37 Página 33
43,094 km2 (excluding the Faroe Islands and Groenland; the latter measures more than 2 million km2 in size, making it the largest island in the world), 5.6 million inhabitants, member of the European Union since 1973
made the Danes Christians.” Bertel Thorvaldsen was the first Danish artist to enter the annals of international art history for his 19th c. neo-classic sculptures, mostly created in Rome and exhibited at his museum in Copenhagen. The 20th c. began with Kai Nielsen and his Rodin-influenced, monumental sculptures, followed by Henry Heerup’s surrealist explorations and Sonja Ferlov’s body of work. The most internationally acclaimed, however, is Robert Jacobsen, the foremost Danish sculptor of post-war Europe, who lived in Paris and created highly personal and abstract pieces in metal. His fame on the international scene was only briefly contested by the multifaceted, experimental pop-artist Per Kirkeby – the second half of the 20th c. showed a significant U.S. American influence on the Danish visual arts –, a student of the Eks-skolen (School for Experimental Art, 1961) who championed socially responsible art, artistic versatility and a critical view of reality. In the 1980s, Willy Ørskov approached art from a more intellectual standpoint. Finally, the generation to emerge at the turn of this century and succeed in a borderless Europe and an interconnected world includes artists like Joachim Køster and his video-art, Eliasson and his installations and the very young, ironic and playful Jeppe Heim. In Denmark the limits between different disciplines began to blur very early on. In 1917, it passed its first law to protect the environment. “Urban development provided new possibilities for working with nature,” remarked Salto, citing Earl T. Sørensen and his landscape architecture at the University of Aarhus (1931–47), whose buildings were designed by Kay Fisker, as one example. A different approach is reflected in his allotment gardens – small, lawn quadrants surrounded by oval hedges – in Nærum (1948). Swedish artist Andersson has worked on gardens, landscape, art and urban development in the Scanpark (Copenhagen, 1996) and elsewhere. Even bridges and motorways are the subject of landscape design and aesthetics, such as the Lingby motorway by Edith and Ole Nørgaard (1965–74). Last but not least, the work of the incomparable Arne Jacobsen exemplified not only outstanding modernist architecture, but also the best in Danish industrial and furniture design. DENMARK 33