Mythologies – The Beginning and End of Civilizations

"Mythologies - The Beginning and End of Civilisations" is an exhibition about faith, hope, crisis and revolution, and how the power of narrative has been used to create and change societies - from Greek myths to today's welfare state.

Mythological stories contain powerful forces that can be both edifying and destructive. The exhibition Mythologies - The Beginning and End of Civilisations, which unfolds in two galleries at ARoS, aims to reveal the narratives that have underpinned society throughout different historical eras, guiding communities as well as war and destruction. Herein lies the duality of mythologies.

With this exhibition, ARoS wants the audience to relate to the mythologies that define and create the framework for the society that we are all part of and contribute to. One of the main theses of the exhibition is that myths and stories are still what bind us together. By looking at a number of significant points in history, Mythologies - The Beginning and End of Civilisations will uncover the periods where old narratives are broken and where new ones emerge in an often radical break. In this way, the exhibition creates a bridge between the past and the present while at the same time illuminating the social changes that have led to shifts in the mythologies and narratives that have influenced the fundamental social constructs.

Mythologies - The Beginning and End of Civilisations begins with early Greek mythologies, where the divine takes on human form. The exhibition then moves on to the Reformation and Counter-Reformation struggle over Christian mythology to the revolutionary idiom of neoclassicism, where it is no longer a religious but a political mythology, and where classical mythology is the mirror of revolutions.

The exhibition also deals with more recent mythologies such as the mythological narratives of the new nation states about their own past that legitimise a population's right to a certain area, fascism's mythologising of its own existence and our welfare state, which has replaced the mythological communities of earlier times.

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 (Gian 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, Nicholò Regnier, Peter Paul Rubens, Leni Reifenstahl, Frederik von Scholten, L.A. Schou, Hendrik van Steenwijck the Elder, Jacob Isaacz. van Swanenburgh, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Horace Vernet, Master I.W, M.E. Winge, Jan Brueghel the Younger.

The exhibition at niv. 5 closes on 18 October

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.

The exhibition at niv. 1. closes on 6 Sep

Augustinus Fonden

Knud Højgaards Fond

Statens Kunstfond

Gagosian

Kvadrat

Ege Tæpper

Panasonic

Møbeltransport DK

Jyllands-Postens Fond

Beckett Fonden