24 hours of performance art
June 24, 2022
Artists: Valie Export, Peaches, Martin Creed, Monster Chetwynd, Tosh Basco, Wu Tsang, Arvida Bÿstrom, Jakob Kirkegaard, KasperSophie, and others
Copenhagen’s six art centres are proud to launch a unique programme of performances called Art in A Day, a 24-hour collaborative event that will unfold throughout one day across the city of Copenhagen.
During the entire day of June 24, from 12:01am until 11:59pm, the city and the six art centres will host over 14 artistic performances by Danish and international artists from Valie Export, Peaches, Martin Creed, Monster Chetwynd, to Tosh Basco and Wu Tsang, Arvida Bÿstrom, Jakob Kirkegaard, and KasperSophie, among others.
Curated by Creator Projects in close collaboration with Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Kunstforeningen Gl. Strand, O-Overgaden and Copenhagen Contemporary, Art in a Day creates the opportunity to experience performance art through a unique format, transforming the landscape of the city and the art centres into a stage for the performing arts.
The program will kick off on June 23 with two kickstarting performances. First, the Turner Art Prize winner artist, Martin Creed will present his outstanding performance All the Bells in front of Gl. Strand at 11:22 in close collaboration with churches and elementary schools in Copenhagen, creating a cacophonic sound piece—bells, children’s screams and the soundscape of Copenhagen—that will joyfully resonate within the city. Then, just after midnight, at 00.01, the internationally renowned musician and visual artist, Peaches will ignite the event with a powerful music performance at Den Frie Centre for Contemporary Art.
On the morning of June 24, a marching band will parade the streets of Copenhagen wearing costumes by visual artist and designer, Henrik Vibskov. The parade will connect the performances happening throughout the day, walking and playing music in the streets of Copenhagen, becoming the vector that connects the various events and accompanying the audience from one venue to the next.
Art in a Day is driven by the desire of strengthening the collaboration between contemporary art institutions and their public. It promotes the importance of joining forces between institutions, sharing ideas, and distributing resources collectively to create more diversified programs that speak out to a larger audience. Using the city as a stage, Art in a Day breaks the rules for presenting performance art within an institutional context by stretching time and space and challenging the notion of what “performance” means and represents today within and outside an institutional context. Taking the work of the invited artists as a point of departure, the program shows the artists’ engagement with key questions of our times, reflecting on themes like gender fluidity, sexual orientation, poetry, collective listening, power structures and capitalism’s critique.
Central to the spirit of Art in a Day is the notion of “social gatherings” and collective participation. It advocates the potential of performance art to imagine a different bodily presence that reconnects people to the “here and now,” creating new means of physical encounters between people through art. The performances will take place in Copenhagen’s urban landscape to make art and, particularly, performance art accessible to new audiences.
Art in a Day’s ambitious program is an extension of the art institutions’ profiles and wishes to make a positive permanent mark on Copenhagen’s artistic and cultural life. The “genius loci” and history of the institutions, the city as well as the rhythm of the day make up the conceptual foundation for Art in a Day. The various performances will serve as a reflection in an audience-involving and alternative “city walk,” which will lead from Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art in Østerbro over the inner city to Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Nikolaj Kunsthal and Kunstforeningen Gl. Strand, to O-Overgaden in Christianshavn and finally end up at Copenhagen Contemporary on Refshaleøen. The six art centres become stops on an urban route, as part of an overall choreography, where the individual performances relate to a given place and time of day.
