Christiansen in High Seas

TV art, Communist music and waltzing melodies. A new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art focuses on an overlooked period within the work of Fluxus artist and composer Henning Christiansen.

Henning Christiansen wanted to create a better world. With lovely waltzes, melodies with popular appeal and romantic compositions. His project was part of a wider-ranging struggle against capitalism, EEC, smokescreens and evasive chitchat. Now the Museum of Contemporary Art shows an exhibition featuring rarely seen works from the 1970s by one of Denmark’s greatest sound artists. 

From Fluxus and minimalism to neo-romanticism 
Henning Christiansen is known for his role in the Fluxus movement and for his stringent, minimalist works that led to new departures within the European art music scene. But around 1970 Christiansen began to write a very different kind of music. Romantic music that formed a complete contrast to his previous compositions. Up until this point, these works have been virtually absent from discussions of Christiansen’s art in spite of the increasing attention it now attracts in Denmark and abroad. 

About the exhibition
In collaboration with DR (the Danish broadcasting corporation) and Henning Christiansen’s Archives we will show rare TV works, scores, interviews and other objects that have never before been on display. The exhibition also features three works by young artists who inject a contemporary perspective on the emotionally charged earnestness and melodious qualities in Christiansen’s compositions. 

If you want to know more please call and say hello. The exhibition is curated by Magnus Kaslov [email protected]