Jesper Christiansen, Sebastian Dacey (UK), Kristian Devantier, Eri Itoi (JP), Leonard Forslund (SE), Fos, Günther Förg (DE), Isa Genzken (DE), Shara Hughes (US), Astrid Kruse Jensen, Christian Jeppsson (SE), Eske Kath, Martin Kippenberger (DE), Eddie Martinez (US), Pind, Javier Piñon (US), Tal R, Elisabeth Toubro, Lars Tygesen, Cosima von Bonin (DE), Wolf von Kries (DE), Kathrine Ærtebjerg

The exhibition presents works by Danish and International artists that each unfolds a reflexion on the role of the artist in today’s dynamic and rapidly expanding consumer society.

Colourful interior paintings depicting fragile and neatly arranged knickknack, popcorn drawings, dressed up female figures with fur coats, diamonds and pearls and imaginatively decorated hats as well as a machine that can produce exclusive toilet rolls in bright and shining silver. This is what the beholder will encounter at Accessories. The exhibition takes a critical and fascinated glance at the role of art in consumer society and plays with the notion of the gallery as a shop,  a supermarket or an alternative kind of market place.

Accessories deals with the problems and dilemmas that arise when the market mechanisms are constantly gaining influence on the art world. Can art be considered as decoration, an article of everyday use, a bonus for staff members or as lucrative objects of investment? Is it necessary to maintain the notion of art as a privileged field which is isolated from the outside world and which can, therefore, act as a form of contrast in relation to the rapidly accelerating circulation of consumer goods in the surrounding society? Or is it possible to imagine a third possibility? A position where art functions as a place in which art and economic life, social-minded critique and commercial consumer culture can meet, cross and mutually enrich each other?

Accessories circles around these questions. Taking its point of departure in painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation art the exhibition gives an insight into the current development on the contemporary art scene. Thus, Danish and International artist examine the possibilities and limitations of art in a modern experience society, just like the majority of them unfold a reflexion on the role of the artist in today’s global consumer society.