Lene Adler Petersen

At the Spring Exhibition 2027, we present one of Denmark’s most important contemporary artists, Lene Adler Petersen, in the largest retrospective exhibition to date of her artistic work.

Lene Adler Petersen’s (b. 1944) works emerge from a deep engagement with the avant-garde movements of the 1960s and 1970s, when the youth revolt and the women’s movement ignited a strong belief in equality, freedom, and community.

Everyday life—in all its banality and depth—is the recurring point of departure for Lene Adler Petersen’s conceptual, poetic, and political work. Through language and image, body and gender, she explores the frameworks of life and art.

With the action The Female Christ, she became instantly known nationwide when she walked naked through the Copenhagen Stock Exchange holding a cross. This feminist action is today an iconic image of the era’s challenge to established notions of power, gender, and religion.

The exhibition will offer a nuanced insight into Lene Adler Petersen’s entire artistic career, showcasing the breadth, courage, and continued relevance of her work—from collective actions and films, through her original serial works and installations, and to her later expressive and minimalist paintings and public commissions.