ARKEN

Why it is renowned

ARKEN calls itself Denmark's largest museum of contemporary art, and its collection runs to more than 400 works, most of them made after 1990.¹² Danish, Nordic and international artists hang side by side, among them Olafur Eliasson, Ai Weiwei, Antony Gormley and Grayson Perry, with whole galleries given to Damien Hirst and Anselm Reyle.²³ Time Out and Condé Nast Traveler both name it among the museums of Copenhagen worth the trip, for the collection and for the building.²³

The story

An architectural competition for a new museum of contemporary art south-west of Copenhagen was held in 1988, and it was won by Søren Robert Lund while he was still a student of architecture.⁴⁵ Queen Margrethe II opened the museum in 1996.⁵ The deconstructivist building sits in the dunes of the beach park at Køge Bay like a stranded ship, its 150-metre gallery called the Axis forming the hull, with raw concrete floors and riveted steel doors with portholes.⁵² C.F. Møller designed an extension in 2008 that added about half again as much gallery space, and Lund designed a new entrance hall in 2009.⁵⁴ Later landscaping set the museum on its own island, reached by bridges across lagoons.⁴ ARKEN is a self-governing institution run with a grant from the Danish state.¹

What to know it by

• The museum building⁵1996Søren Robert LundShip-shaped building with the 150-metre Axis gallery
• Powerless Structures, Fig. 101⁶2012Elmgreen & DragsetBronze boy on a rocking horse in the forecourt
• Sous tension⁶1999Mona HatoumInstallation of a kitchen with electrified utensils
• Love Story⁶2016Candice BreitzVideo installation shown at the Venice Biennale in 2017
• The Walthamstow Tapestry⁶2009Grayson PerryTapestry of a life's journey from birth to death