The group exhibition Nervetråde (Nerve Threads) takes inspiration from the nervous state of mind that permeated literature and visual art around the turn of the twentieth century, when Den Frie was founded. Much like today, this period was marked by polarization and the uncertainty of an unpredictable future.
Attuned to these resonances, Nervetråde looks at how the interior vibration of a nervous age continues to reverberates through contemporary artistic practices that engage with unease and disquiet. The exhibition foregrounds artistic responses to an increasingly precarious world and asks under what conditions anxiety and pleasure emerge within our mutated environment. Nervetråde traces nervous and febrile dreams, while also suggesting ways of coping with a pervasive sense of uneasiness that seems to define our present moment.
Drawing particularly on a grotesque strain within Danish literature—a form of so-called “weird fiction” only recently rediscovered and reassessed—the exhibition approaches contemporary artistic practices through the lens of these historical texts. Here, reality appears to penetrate the membrane of inner stability, muddying distinctions between truth and falsehood, the real and the fantastical.
The exhibition presents artists such as Meriem Bennani, Kai Althoff, Lutz Bacher, Hanne Darboven, Julie Falk, Ville Laurinkoski, Rolf Nowotny, Karen Kilimnik, Samara Sallam, Roland Topor, and Peter Wächtler, among others.
Nervetråde
Opens in 56 days
