Lene Adler Petersen

This autumn, ARoS presents a retrospective exhibition of Lene Adler Petersen (b. 1944), an important voice in Danish contemporary art and the Danish experimental avant-garde of the 1960s.

Lene Adler Petersen first came to prominence in 1969 with the performance The Female Christ, in which she walked naked through Børsen (the former Copenhagen Stock Exchange, red.) carrying a cross. For more than six decades, she has created works that move between the private and the public, the poetic and the political. Her work finds meaning in the intimate and the everyday, while also engaging with the political struggles of its time – not least the youth rebellion and the women’s movement – with an activist belief in the possibility of change.

The exhibition offers a broad and nuanced insight into Adler Petersen’s artistic practice, revealing both the courage and the continuing relevance of her work across different periods, media and forms of expression. Her works emerged from the particular circumstances of their time, yet many of them speak directly to questions that continue to concern us today. What structures in society shape our lives? How can we make them visible? And what power do images hold?

The exhibition is a collaboration between the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) and ARoS and is realised with support from Augustinus Fonden.

The exhibition is based on research by Birgitte Anderberg, senior researcher and curator at the National Gallery of Denmark. At ARoS, the exhibition is curated by Signe Melgaard Mark.