Scan Magazine | Special Theme | Nordic Art & Culture Special – Denmark
Installation view: SUPERFLEX, Superkilen, Copenhagen. Photo: Iwan Baan.
The art of nurturing art This autumn, the Turbine Hall at TATE Modern and Serpentine Galleries, two of London’s best-known art institutions, will be presenting solo exhibitions by artists represented by the gallery Nils Stærk. Nils Stærk, the Dane behind the gallery, talks to Scan Magazine about his two decades in the art industry, his love of the irrational, and the artist group SUPERFLEX’s forthcoming Turbine Hall installation. By Signe Hansen | Photos: Malle Madsen
Having worked with most of the artists since the beginning of their career, Nils Stærk today represents 20 successful artists and artist groups from Denmark and abroad. One of them is the Danish artist group SUPERFLEX, which has been commissioned to create the next installation for Tate Modern’s distinct Turbine Hall. Another is Norwegian Los Angeles-based artist and photographer Torbjørn Rødland, who will be exhibiting at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery this autumn. But, contrary to what one might think, Stærk does not have an art degree or elaborate system behind his way of find42 | Issue 104 | September 2017
June this year, Stærk opened his new 500-square-metre gallery space in Copenhagen’s notorious north-west neighbourhood. Designed by Henning Larsen Architects in an old garage, the new bright gallery presents five exhibitions per year.
Never bored ing and selecting artists. “I don’t have an academic approach to art; it’s much more intuitive and based on more than 25 years of experience of working with contemporary art,” he says. “I consider it a great gift to be able to work like that, because our society today is way too rationally righteous. The irrational is being pushed into the background because we constantly strive to be more efficient, but I believe that we would perform better and contribute much more if we allowed more room for the irrational elements of life.” The irrational has certainly contributed to a successful career for Stærk. In
The main denominator for most of the artists represented by Nils Stærk is that they use their art to question and reflect on the world they are part of. SUPERFLEX, an artist group consisting of three Danes widely known for their politically charged and playfully subversive installation works, is among those. “SUPERFLEX uses a very commercial structure to describe different challenges and look at how our society is structured. They call their work ‘tools’ because they use it to question and discuss social and economic structures, but what’s interesting about them is that unlike many other artists they always leave the viewer in doubt