Focusing on the late 1970s and early 1980s while also reaching further afield in art history – especially to Dada and Surrealism – and to the period’s echoes in present-day art and music, postdoc Marie Arleth Skov examines how the human body has been staged in punk. Her research draws on feminist, queer and performance theory and extends to philosophical and political issues alike. 

Under the heading Punk Bodies, this new collaboration between ARoS and Aarhus University (AU) will result in postdoc Marie Arleth Skov presenting her research in the form of a major exhibition at ARoS in 2026. Marie Arleth Skov’s key areas of study – Surrealism, sexuality and feminism – will constitute central themes in the show. 

“In punk culture, the body is a canvas. The body’s potential for many different modes of expression is at the centre of everything from everyday performances and visual terrorism to playful transgressions of sexual taboos and art-as-life experiments. More than anything, punk can be seen as an attitude; an attitude embodied through a lifestyle that celebrates the do-it-yourself approach. This manifests in the form of DIY costumes, DIY identities, even DIY bodies that are imaginative and provocative,” says Marie Arleth Skov. 
 
The exhibition will be accompanied by several peer-reviewed publications, an academic symposium on the exhibition’s subjects and a practical seminar with students from the Department of Art History, Aesthetics & Culture and Museology at AU. Furthermore, a public events programme will be arranged at ARoS, featuring talks, performances, and more. 

“We’re thrilled to enlarge ARoS’ effort on research in the art field with this new collaboration. The research project continues ARoS’s legacy of creating exhibitions that explore current topics with art history as a springboard, and I’m certain that Marie Arleth Skov’s research will also serve as inspiration for how we think and practice curatorial work at ARoS,” says museum director Rebecca Matthews. 

Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam, associate professor at the School of Communication and Culture – Department of Art History at AU, will work closely with Marie Arleth Skov on her three-year research project, which is realised with generous support from the New Carlsberg Foundation. 

About Marie Arleth Skov

Dr Marie Arleth Skov (born 1980) is an art historian, curator and writer. Her professional focus is on twentieth-century art history. She particularly studies punk, Surrealism and hybrid connections between lifestyle, visual arts, artistic publications, music and fashion. 

Marie Arleth Skov has lived in Berlin for 25 years, working in Gropius Bau and at the Kulturforum/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and studying philosophy, communication, and art history at the Freie Universität Berlin. She was awarded her doctorate from Leipzig University in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen. 

Marie Arleth Skov has been a scholar of punk for many years. Her accumulated knowledge has resulted in a number of essays, academic articles and most recently her book, Punk Art History: Artworks from the European No Future Generation, published by Intellect Books in 2023. Marie Arleth Skov is the frontwoman of the Punk Scholars Network in Germany and sits on the editorial board of Punk & Post-Punk Journal. 

Most recently, Marie Arleth Skov was awarded a research grant from Berlin’s Senate Department for Culture and Europe for a research project on punk FLINTA (women, lesbians, inter, non-binary, trans and agender people).