Trapholt’s largest international exhibition to date explores art and emotion

FEEL ME, which open on September 26, 2024, is the largest international exhi-bition at Trapholt to date. The exhibition features world-renowned artists from Denmark and abroad, such as DRIFT, Daniel Wurtzel, Liz West, and Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm. Through art, FEEL ME explores emotion in an age marked by accelerating development in all areas.

FEEL ME consists of artworks by 28 Danish and international artists and desig-ners, several of which are presented in Denmark for the first time. The exhibition covers more than 1000 m² at Trapholt and takes the audience on a sensory and bodily journey into the realm of emotions.

For the first time ever, Danish audiences will have the opportunity to experience the work of American artist Daniel Wurtzel who became world famous when his piece ”Paper Tornado” was shown at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics. The exhibition at Trapholt offers a unique opportunity to see his extra-ordinary, five-meter installation “Air Fountain” in which transparent silk rises from the ground in an intimate dance. This is a rare chance to experience one of Wurtzel’s captivating creations up close.

As a special treat, visitors at Trapholt will be able to experience two major works by the Dutch artist duo DRIFT: “Fragile Future,” which merges nature and technology in a luminous network of tiny dandelion seeds mounted on LED bulbs that are suspended from copper scaffolding, as well as the ’living’ instal-lation “Shylight,” in which large white flowers open as they descend from the ceiling.
Karen Grøn, director of Trapholt, says:
– Feel Me is an extraordinary opportunity to experience Daniel Wurtzel’s sensa-tional aerial installation art and DRIFT’s overwhelming and sensuous nature installations, which have never been shown in Denmark before.

Do emotions belong to the body or the mind? Can computers and science mani-pulate our brains and feelings? And is it possible to design a space in which every-one feels comfortable? These are some of the questions that visitors are invited to explore in the exhibition as they embark on a journey through the themes of mind, body, and space.

Karen Grøn, director of Trapholt, says:
– These days, we are very concerned with how we feel, and there is an active public conversation about how humans can stay emotionally connected to them-selves in an age of acceleration. But how do we understand emotion, and can art help us articulate and visualize the concept? In the exhibition FEEL ME, it will be possible to experience how artists express emotions such as fear, love, fragility, astonishment, rage, and intimacy. The communal experience of art in the museum space carries a unique potential to foster conversations about emotion.

In the exhibition, a work by award-winning Danish artist Cecilie Waagner Falken-strøm – who in 2021/22 sent an artwork with NASA to the International Space Station – imagines a near future in which artificial intelligence is responsible for the care work of patients who are approaching death in places like hospitals and hospices.

Australian artist Nina Rajcic has employed artificial intelligence to create a mirror that is able to read the mood of each individual guest and create a unique and personal poem for them, while American artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg is exhibit-ing her laboratory-made vaccine, which, if distributed, could make everyone more lovable.
Other highlights include a huge, anxiety-inducing balloon by Chinese artist Zhou Xiaohu that is slowly inflated until being on the verge of bursting, as well as a large neon rainbow entitled “Happiness is as brittle as glass” by Sali Muller from Luxembourg.

The exhibition also features works by Bill Viola (US), Jeppe Hein (DK), Gudrun Has-le (DK), Frederik Næblerød (DK), Farshad Farzankia (IR/DK), Kelli Connell (US), Wil-liam Armstrong & Paul Lightfoot (UK), Roma Auskalnyte (FI), and Anne Torpe (DK). The exhibition is supported by the Augustinus Foundation, the Obel Family Foun-dation, the New Carlsberg Foundation, and the Aage & Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation.