Throughout the summer, visitors to Horsens Art Museum can experience a wide selection of works from the museum’s extensive collection of experimental contemporary art. On the ground floor, the focus is on works from the 1980s to the present day, while the historic wing explores the themes of the human body and nature.

The 1980´s: A focus on the 1980s and beyond. This presentation highlights artists from the museum’s collection who all achieved their artistic breakthrough during the 1980s. The works on display range from pieces created in the 1980s to works made today.

The current display features works by the following artists: Jiri Georg Dokoupil, Dorthe Dahlin, Anette Abrahamsson, Morten Stræde, Lone Høyer Hansen, Erik A. Frandsen, Inge Ellegaard, Lars Ravn, Berit H. Jensen, Keneth Nielsen, Nina Sten Knudsen, Lars Nørgård, Peter Bonde, and Christian Lemmerz.

The Human Figure Through 100 Years: The human figure has played a central role in visual art for many centuries.

This collection presentation showcases a selection of works from the museum’s collection created between 1896 and 2022, all of which place the human figure at their centre. Over the course of more than a century, artists have explored, challenged, and reinvented the ways in which people are represented—from naturalistic depictions and expressionist experiments to modern and conceptual interpretations.

With this exhibition, we aim to demonstrate how representations of and perspectives on humanity have changed alongside social developments and new artistic movements.

Visitors will encounter works in which the body and face serve as mirrors of contemporary ideas, as well as expressions of the artist’s own emotions and identity. The exhibition invites reflection on what it means to be human, seen through the lens of art.

The exhibition includes works by PhoebeNewYork, Cathrine Raben Davidsen, Pernille Koldbech Fich, Erik A. Frandsen, Carl Forup, Cilius Andersen, J. F. Willumsen, Erik Hoppe, Einar Utzon-Frank, Adam Fischer, Immanuel Ibsen, Martin Erik Andersen, Jiri Georg Dokoupil, Camilla Thorup, and Mogens Zieler.

Landscape: Landscape has occupied a central position in Danish visual art for the past 200 years. In this collection display, Horsens Art Museum draws on its own collection of landscape paintings to illustrate the development of the genre through a series of snapshots from different periods.

Visitors can experience beautiful and harmonious depictions of nature, as seen in the works of artists such as C.W. Eckersberg, J. Th. Lundbye, and P.C. Skovgaard. Skovgaard helped shape a national image of Denmark through his paintings of beech forests, fields, coastlines, and tranquil skies. Landscape was not painted merely as nature, but also as a symbol of the nation and Danish identity. Later in the nineteenth century, artists’ perspectives shifted, and nature came to be experienced and interpreted more directly through the senses.

Throughout the twentieth century and up to the present day, landscape has increasingly been used as a vehicle for experimentation with colour, form, and personal expression. It became a space for emotion, symbolism, and abstraction. This development is reflected in the collection display through paintings by Nina Sten Knudsen, Cathrine Raben Davidsen, Martin Erik Andersen, Mogens Zieler, Peter Bonde, Keneth Nielsen, Anne Marie Ploug, Johannes A. Jørgensen, Emil Westman Hertz, Asger Jorn, C.W. Eckersberg, J. Th. Lundbye, Lauritz Hartz, L. A. Ring, and P.C. Skovgaard.

Michael Kvium: In Horsens Art Museum’s Michael Kvium Gallery, visitors can experience a broad selection of works by Michael Kvium from the museum’s collection. Highlights include Future Me (1993–94), The Space of Painting (Maleriets Rum, 1996–2001), God’s Stratagem (Guds Krigslist, 1992), and The Conqueror (2024).
Read more about Michael Kvium here.

This year’s summer display can be experienced from 16 June to 20 September 2026.