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Art Hub Copenhagen is hiring a strong, new team of directors

On 1 June 2021, Jacob Fabricius and Lars Bang Larsen will jointly commence work as directors for Art Hub Copenhagen. They will be heading up a consolidation of the organization, which, inter alia, includes a future move to permanent locales in Copenhagen’s Northwest District, locales that will constitute a physical gathering place to inspire the flourishing of Danish and international contemporary art.

Jacob Fabricius and Lars Bang Larsen. Photo: Agnete Schlichtkrull

Jacob Fabricius is coming from a position as director for Kunsthal Aarhus and artistic director of the Busan Biennale 2020 (South Korea). Lars Bang Larsen is coming from many international collaborations – including with the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin – and has in recent months been affiliated with Art Hub as artistic advisor. The new team of directors will take over management from the acting director and chairwoman of the management board, Tine Fischer, who will continue as chairwoman of Art Hub Copenhagen’s board.

”Art Hub is a completely new type of art institution, which – as implied in the use of the word ”hub” – is a place in which many disciplines, methods, and practices meet and interact with each other. Art Hub is a place for development, production, research, and particularly the encounter of art with its surroundings. In order to secure this cross-disciplinary institution, it is a huge asset that we have been able to attract such a strong director team, which unites their international networks and their skills in curation, artistic development, and research. Jacob and Lars are both strong curators but complement each other with different approaches to art and the art scene. Therefore, we are especially happy that they will be heading up Art Hub, which is now seriously taking shape,” says chairwoman of Art Hub’s board, Tine Fischer, about the choice of the two directors.

A cross-disciplinary gathering place for the Danish and international contemporary art scene

In 2018, Art Hub Copenhagen was initiated by the Bikuben Foundation, but it remains an independent institution. The goal is to create a cross-disciplinary gathering place for the Danish and international contemporary art scene with a focus on, respectively, artistic production and development, artistic research and knowledge production, networking and visibility.

When the new directors take charge, it will be as a joint team; but Lars Bang Larsen will focus primarily on artistic research, while Jacob Fabricius’ focus will be on artistic production and development. Both have strong national and international networks that can bring Art Hub important insights and relevant collaborative partners. Moreover, the director team will be supplemented by a small but competent team of employees who are already engaged in building the organization.

”Art Hub is a new form of cultural institution, and it is an exciting and unique place that we are looking very much forward to shaping for the benefit of contemporary art in Denmark. Danish and international art life needs an institution that is able to look at contemporary art from many different angles and make room for the very practice-oriented, for artistic research, and for public conversations about art. For us, Art Hub is about being a resource for growth on the art scene, about being a gathering place for artists, and about working actively to conceive and communicate art to a broader audience in new ways that reach beyond traditional formats. The goal for us is to help create a forum and initiate processes to put major portions of contemporary art into a wider context both nationally and internationally,” say Lars Bang Larsen and Jacob Fabricius.

Art Hub here and now

At the moment, Art Hub Copenhagen is housed in temporary locales at Halmtorvet in the Meatpacking District of Copenhagen but will be moving in the autumn of 2022 into permanent locales in Copenhagen’s Northwest District.

Since its establishment in 2018, Art Hub has run a residency program that provides artists an opportunity to develop their artistic practice and, at the same time, support the development of networks, etc. Moreover, Art Hub also enters into a number of partnerships. With support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, a special initiative for artistic research is being developed that focuses on artistic processes. In addition, through a series of ongoing events for an open audience, people may become more familiar with the artists and their practice and, in this way, acquire a greater insight into contemporary art. At the moment, such events are held online, but live programs, which engage art and artists in different ways, will be resumed as soon as it is possible.

Brief Notes on Jacob Fabricius (b. 1970)

Artistic director for Kunsthal Aarhus until he becomes director of Art Hub Copenhagen. Before that, director of Malmö Kunsthal, Sweden, and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen. Has recently concluded the Busan Biennale in South Korea, where he was artistic director. In addition, founder of Pork Salad Press and the Old News newspaper project.

Has worked with many different exhibition formats in public spaces and was for the period of 2016-2019 a member of the Committee for Visual Arts Project Funding for the Danish Arts Foundation.

Selected international curated exhibitions in recent years:

2021: Busan Biennale: The Chicago Chapter, The Gray Center, University of Chicago and Empty Bottle Presents, Chicago. Curator.

2020: Words at an Exhibition 열장의 이야기와 다섯 편의  an exhibition in ten chapters and five poems, Busan Biennale 2020, MOCA Busan, South Korea, Artistic Director.

2019: iwillmedievalfutureyou1, South Korea, Art Sonje Center. Curator.

2018: SUPERFLEX, WE ARE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT, MOAD, Museum of Art and Design at Miami Dade College, USA. Curator.

Brief Notes on Lars Bang Larsen (b. 1972)

Since 2020, affiliated with Art Hub as artistic advisor. Before this, inter alia, affiliated with Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Haute École d’Art et de Design, Geneva, Kungliga Konsthögskolan, Stockholm, and MIT, Massachusetts.

2007-2011: Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen with dissertation entitled A History of Irritated Material. Psychedelic Concepts in Neo-Avant-Garde Art.

2013-2015: Mads Øvlisen post doc stipend at the University of Copenhagen with the practice based research project entitled Re-enactment as a Curatorial and Art Historical Method.

Selected international curated exhibitions in recent years:

2021: documenta. Politik und Kunst / documenta. Politics and Art, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin. Curator in collaboration with Julia Voss, Alexia Pooth, Dorothee Wierling, and Dorlis Blume.

2021: Llevame a otro mundo / Take Me to Another World. Retrospective exhibition of Charlotte Johannesson, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Curator in collaboration with Mats Stjernstedt.

2020/21: Stripped. Solo exhibition with Lea Porsager, Moderna Museet, Stockholm and Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Copenhagen.

2019: Mud Muses. A Rant About Technology. Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

2018: Culpa y deudas / Guilt and Debts. Retrospective exhibition with works by Dierk Schmidt at Palacio Velazquez, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.

2016: The 32nd São Paulo Biennale Incerteza viva / Live Uncertainty. Curator in collaboration with Gabi Ngcobo, Sofía Olascoaga, Julia Rebouças, and Jochen Volz.

AHC : gives time, space and voices to artistic experimentation

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