Mythologies - The Beginning and End of Civilizations

4 April until 18 October 2020, level 5
4 April until 6 September 2020, level 1

Mythological narratives possess immense powers which can be both edifying and devastating. The exhibition Mythologies – The Beginning and End of Civilizations, showing in two gallery spaces at ARoS, attempts to expose the narratives that, through various historical epochs, have sustained society and had a governing influence on communities as well as on war and destruction. This embodies the duality of mythology.

ARoS seeks, with this exhibition, to persuade the audience to respond to the mythologies that define and create the framework of the society which we are all part of and contribute to. The fact that myths and narratives are the fabric that still manages to unite us all is one of the principal assertions of the exhibition. By highlighting a number of specific historical points of interest, Mythologies – The Beginning and End of Civilizations will uncover periods where old narratives are discarded and new ones emerge, often via radical ruptures. In this way, the exhibition bridges the past and the present while also shining a light on social changes that have changed the emphasis on those mythologies and narratives that have been cardinal to sustaining social constructions.

Mythologies – The Beginning and End of Civilizations starts with the early Greek mythologies where the divine assumes human form. From this, the exhibition moves on to the struggle for Christian mythology launched by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, ending with the revolutionary idiom of neoclassicism where, rather than religion, mythology is now swathed in politics and classical mythology becomes the mirror of revolution.

The exhibition also addresses recent mythologies such as the tales told by nation states of their past, legitimising the rights of populations to certain areas, the fascist mythology of its own existence as well as our own welfare state which has replaced the mythological communities of former times.

Artists at level 5, mythologies in retrospect:

Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard, Peter Nicolai Arbo, Antonio Bellucci, Ferdinand Bol, Francois Boucher,

Ludovico Carracci, Nicolas Chaperon, Pieter Claesz, Nicolas Colombel, Lucas Cranach, Francis Danby, Carlo Dolci, Joseph Dufour, Albrect Dürer, C.W. Eckersberg, Ferraù Fenzoni, Felice Ficherelli, Henry Fuseli, Heinrich von Füger, Elmgreen & Dragset, Paul Gernes, Giampietrino (Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli), Erik Henningsen, Damien Hirst, Abraham Janssens, Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, Jani Leinonen, Jakob van Loo, C.A. Lorentzen, Wilhelm Marstrand, William T. Maud, Fritz Melbye, Helene Nymann, Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Nicolas Regnier, Peter Paul Rubens, Leni Riefenstahl, Frederik von Scholten, L.A. Schou, Hendrik van Steenwijck the Elder, Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburgh, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Horace Vernet, Master I.W, M.E. Winge, and Jan Brueghel the Elder.

Artists at level 1, contemporary mythologies:

Anselm Kiefer, John Akomfrah, Marguerite Humeau, Shana Moulton, Robert Boyd, Christian Jankowski, Anika Schwarzlose, Raphaela Vogel, Kader Attia, Anri Sala, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Sam Durant.

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