New exhibition at ARoS shines a spotlight on punk’s bodily and artistic rebellion

Be confronted by the eccentric and provocative body as ARoS focuses on punk’s creative revolution with the exhibition Unruly. The Body in Punk. The exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of punk’s breakthrough.

Black make-up, dog collars, plastic coats, bondage trousers and cheek piercings. ARoS’ upcoming exhibition Unruly. The Body in Punk explores how the body was used to express all the pain, wildness, energy and defiance inherent in the punk rebellion. At the same time, it highlights the connection between subversive art and rebellious youth culture.

“Unruly is bursting with energy; raw, confrontational, at times humorous and deliberately chaotic. The exhibition shows how punks used both art and the body as powerful tools to express not only wildness and disobedience, but also vulnerability, longing and solidarity,” says Rebecca Matthews, museum director, adding:

“Building on a tradition of artistic rebellion – from the Dadaist’s performative nonsense to the Surrealist’s play with fetishes and the breaking of norms – the punks transformed themselves into living, breathing works of art, and I look forward to presenting guests with the results of the art-historical and historical research on which the exhibition is based.”

The Punk-body at the Centre

The exhibition brings together around 130 works from the UK and Eastern and Western Europe – most of which have never been shown before in Scandinavia. Unruly. The Body in Punk takes you back to the origins of punk in 1970's London and shows how the punk movement spread and mutated along the way – particularly within Berlin’s subcultures.

Many of the works were created under precarious and vulnerable conditions, where the body was the most accessible and the cheapest material. Through wild and intimate self-representation, the works show how punks used the body to undermine dominant power structures, subvert rigid gender roles and challenge entrenched notions of identity.

"Punk was a music and fashion style; it was an attitude and a cultural revolution. But punk was also a bodily revolution, whether it was about defying beauty ideals, insisting on pleasure, staging aggression, or vomiting and pissing in the street. Much of what sparked the punk movement is, unfortunately, relevant again today, from a youth facing a No Future scenario due to the climate crisis and the threat of war, to discussions about sexuality, gender and autonomy. In that sense, it is very much an exhibition for the times,” says researcher and curator Marie Arleth Skov.

The exhibition features film and photography, fanzines and jewellery, posters and Polaroids, and a drum kit in tight leather. Unruly. The Body in Punk brings together works by: Ajamu X, Sven Marquardt, Linder, Die Tödliche Doris, Jean-Luc Verna, Luciano Castelli, Nina Sten-Knudsen, Jill Westwood, Rosa Extra, Caroline Coon, Cornelia Schleime, Anne Bean, Billedstofteatret x Sods, Derek Jarman, Pierre Molinier, Karen Knorr & Olivier Richon, Penny Goring, Leigh Bowery, Derek Ridgers, Helmut Middendorf, Eugene Merinov, Frank Fenstermacher, Käthe Kruse, Jamie Reid, Pennie Smith, Sheila Rock, Jan Sneum, The Kipper Kids and Malaria! along with archive material from, among others, Archiv B, Berlin and the Mott Collection, London.

Research into the Art History of Punk

Unruly. The Body in Punk is curated by Marie Arleth Skov and is the result of her three-year postdoctoral research project carried out in collaboration between ARoS and Aarhus University.

Marie Arleth Skov has been researching punk culture for the past 15 years and is chair of the international research network Punk Scholars Network. Her book Punk Art History. Artworks from the European No Future Generation on the art history of punk was published by Intellect Books in 2023.

A catalogue will be produced to accompany the exhibition, bringing together eight essays by international researchers specializing in art history, design history and social history, as well as two interviews: one with the British photographer and artist Ajamu X and one with Celeste Bell, a British filmmaker and daughter of punk icon Poly Styrene. The catalogue is published by Marrow Press.

Punk Symposium at ARoS

On Saturday, 28 November, a one-day art-academic symposium will also be held at ARoS in conjunction with the exhibition, entitled NOISE & VISION: Punk Aesthetics, DIY Methods, and Underground Experiments in Art Films.

The symposium will explore how subcultural art film employs the interplay between the visual and the sonic, and the programme will combine thematic sessions featuring contributions from students and emerging research talents alongside international keynote speakers presenting their research.

The symposium has been made possible with support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the New Carlsberg Foundation.

Unruly. The Body in Punk is on view from 27 June to 13 December 2026.

The exhibition has been realized with generous support from the New Carlsberg Foundation, the Grosserer L.F. Foght Foundation and the Toyota Foundation.

Press photos can be downloaded via Dropbox and may be used freely with proper credit.

For further information, please contact:

ARoS Press and Communication
presse@a ros.dk
+45 61904942