Catalogue

With Behaviour, Carsten Höller presents a series of works which can be used as tools to influence the experience of visiting another art exhibition. The exhibition incorporates light, sound, smells, drugs, mirrors, giant mushroom replicas and 112 works from the museum’s own collection. Some of Höller’s artworks have an impact on the air in the environment, some can be consumed, and some can be used as vision-altering tools. The linen walls of Kunsten have been covered with paintings done between 1935-1956 by Danish and international artists who belonged to the movements of Abstract Expressionism and
CoBrA. It is these paintings, and the other works on display in the museum, that are to be experienced under the influence of Höller’s works.

In addition, Alvar Aalto’s architecture is transformed into a multifaceted landscape, with installations of a light-emitting Decimal Clock, and a Revolving Hotel Room for guests to stay at night. Apptly titled Behaviour, Höller questions with this exhibition why we tend to exhibit artworks in certain ways and why we behave in a particular manner around those works.

Behaviour at Kunsten is presented simultaneously with Carsten Höller’s exhibition Reproduction at Copenhagen Contemporary. Both exhibitions complement each other, exploring together the human experience of and response to the world around us. At Copenhagen Contemporary, the desire for having children is compared to the challenge to position oneself in this world as a child, while consciousness awakens.