Med menneskekroppen og det tidløse landskab som metaforer for tilværelsens uundgåelige transformation indtager den danske billedkunstner Cathrine Raben Davidsen CCs udstillingsrum med et væld af ladede og intense billeder.

Udstillingen Let Everything Happen to You er den mest omfattende retrospektive soloudstilling af kunstnerens arbejde til dato. Den kaster lys over en mindre kendt og mere personlig del af Raben Davidsens praksis, der er rundet af erfaringer som tab, sorg og identitetssøgen. Gennem værkerne formidler kunstneren sin enorme maleriske spændvidde og følelsesmæssige kompleksitet, hvor undersøgelsen af menneskets sårbarhed og billedets kraft er i centrum.

FAMILIEPORTRÆTTER AF SORG
Med hovedvægt på maleri og tegning samler udstillingen over 130 værker udvalgt fra tre af kunstnerens væsentligste perioder; midt 90’erne, midt 10’erne og nutid. En betydelig del af værkerne udstilles for første gang.

I udstillingens centrale rum vises den hidtil største samlede præsentation af Raben Davidsens værker fra 1990 ́erne, der portrætterer hendes familie, barndom og teenageår.
I en ekspressionistisk stil spænder motiverne fra intime og psykologisk ladede portrætter over rå tegninger i olie, kul og blæk. Rummets hovedværk, maleriet Familie, skildrer en nøglebegivenhed i Raben Davidsens liv, nemlig det pludselige tab af faderen. Han døde af AIDS i 1985, da hun var 13 år gammel.

KUNSTEN SOM VIDNESBYRD
Op gennem 2010’erne flytter Raben Davidsen sit fokus fra at udforske det personlige tab til at undersøge mere universelle spørgsmål om menneskelig eksistens og samhørighed. Samtidig begynder hun at male billeder, hvis indhold har mere politisk karakter. Ved at tage sine motiver direkte fra nyhedsstrømmens reportagefotografier taler værkerne direkte til vores samtid. I disse billeder af ødelagte landskaber, af kroppe og ansigter mærket af krig antager Raben Davidsen en position som betragter og medieret vidne og lader værkerne blive vidnesbyrd på vor tids udfordrede humanisme.

Titlen Let Everything Happen to You er lånt fra den østrigske poet Rainer Maria Rilkes digt Go to the Limits of Your Longing (1905). Digtet beskriver den ubærlige, men uundgåelige sidestilling af skønhed og lidelse, der definerer menneskets liv og historie. På samme måde udfordrer Raben Davidsen med sine malerier og tegninger sit publikum til at engagere sig i de følelsesmæssige dimensioner af sorg og tab. Hvordan håndterer vi de ting, der sker med os – og hvordan kommer vi videre derfra?

LET EVERYTHING HAPPEN TO YOU

Using the human body and the timeless landscape as metaphors for life’s inevitable transformation, the Danish artist Cathrine Raben Davidsen takes over CC’s Hall 3 with an array of charged and intense images.

Let Everything Happen to You is the most comprehensive retrospective exhibition of Raben Davidsen’s work to date, sheds light on a lesser known, more personal aspect of a practice shaped by experiences of loss, grief and the search for identity. Here, the artist conveys her vast painterly range and emotional complexity, exploring human vulnerability and the power of images.

FAMILY PORTRAITS OF GRIEF
With an emphasis on painting and drawing, the exhibition brings together more than 130 works selected from three key periods of the artist’s career: the mid-1990s, the 2010s and the present. A substantial number of the works are shown for the first time.

The central room features the largest ever presentation of Raben Davidsen’s work from the 1990s, portraying her family, childhood and teenage years. Executed in an expressionist style, the works range from intimate, psychologically charged portraits to raw drawings in oil, charcoal and ink. The centrepiece, the painting Family, depicts a crucial event in the artist’s life, the sudden loss of her father to AIDS in 1985 when she was 13 years old.

ART AS TESTIMONY
Over the course of the 2010s, Raben Davidsen shifts
her focus from exploring her own personal loss to more universal questions of human existence and connection. At the same time, she begins to make paintings with more directly political content. Featuring subjects drawn from news photography, the works speak directly to our time. In her images of landscapes, bodies and faces devastated by war, Raben Davidsen occupies a position as observer and mediated witness, letting her art testify to the beleaguered humanism of our age.

The exhibition’s title is a line from a 1905 poem, Go to the Limits of Your Longing, by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The poem describes the unbearable yet inescapable combination of beauty and suffering at the heart of human life and history. Likewise, Raben Davidsen’s paintings and drawings challenge the viewer to engage with the emotional dimensions of grief and loss. How do we deal with the things that happen to us, and how do we move on?

ABOUT CATHRINE RABEN DAVIDSEN (b. 1972)
Cathrine Raben Davidsen (b. 1972, Copenhagen)
is a graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and previously studied at art academies in Italy and the Netherlands. Raben Davidsen has exhibited widely in Denmark and abroad. She has executed major commissions, and her work is in the collections of many museums and institutions. Throughout her career, she has won numerous awards and honorary grants. In 2015, she was appointed Knight of the Order of Dannebrog by Her Majesty Queen Margrethe.

On view until 12 May 2024

Visit / Besøg Copenhagen Contemporary her

Flowers have long provided such rich and wondrous inspiration throughout the history of art and fashion, but what happens when you task some of the world’s leading fashion illustrators and artists to depict nature’s creations? Welcome to SHOWstudio’s latest exhibition, FLOWERS, which does exactly that.

Flowers symbolise a multitude of things; the birth of spring, purity and friendship making up just some of their bountiful offerings. They have also long-provided rich and wondrous inspiration throughout the history of art and fashion with nature’s unparalleled beauty seen in the creations of so many wonderful fashion designers, including Alexander McQueen, Christian Dior Schiaparelli and Rei Kawakubo.

To celebrate the beauty of nature, SHOWstudio proudly announce FLOWERS, a new exhibition reinterpreting the floral form as seen through the eyes of over 70 incredible artists working across a variety of mediums, from the traditional to digital and AI painting.

Showcasing contemporary depictions of flora by some of the world’s leading, cutting-edge fashion illustrators and artists, consider FLOWERS as our way of giving back to mother nature by inviting our ever-expansive network of world-class illustrators to contribute their visions.

As an image-maker, nature has always been central to my work. When I take photographs, I often feel that I see a visual resemblance between the colour, the shape, and the movement of the petals and blooms of flowers with the art of couture and high fashion. In fashion illustration, there’s an unbelievable dynamic energy and an exquisite elegance of form. I am excited to show how this understanding of beauty is applied to nature and flowers through the eyes of this group of fantastic fashion illustrators. — Nick Knight, SHOWstudio Director

Participating are as follows:
Abbey McCulloch, Alessandra Genualdo Kingsford, Alexandra Grahame, Amelie Hegardt, Anjelica Roselyn, Barbara Mancini, Beth Fraser, Blue Farrier, Carylann Loeppky, Cathrine Raben Davidsen, Cecilia Carlstedt, Clement Louis, Cliff Warner, Crystal W M Chan, Dylan Qin, Eduardo Mata Icaza, Emma Larsson, February James, Frédéric Forest, Glenn Sandoval, Helen Bullock, Henrike Gomber, Ian Hodgson, Jacky Blue, Jacquetta Crook, Jenifer Corker, Jérémie Marié, Jessica Bird, Jessica May Underwood, Jiajia Li, Johanna Stickland, Jowy Maasdamme, Julia Pelzer, Kaoru Takano, Katarina Kuhl, Kukula, Lara Lancaster, Lydia Roberts, Mahboubeh Absalan, Marco Rea, Marina Mika, Martha Zpounou, Megan Gabrielle Harris, Nicasio Torres Melgar, Nicolas Roa, Ozabu, Paola Travers, Petra Lunenburg, Piet Paris, Poppy Waddilove, Rashad Al-Karooni, Ray Caesar, Rob Unett, Robson Stannard, Sabina Sinko, Samuel Harrison, Seniz Jones, Shokoufeh Attari, Stephen Doherty, Steve Kim, Stina Persson, Suzy Platt, Teresa Austin, Tiffani Glenn, Tine Isachsen, Tobie Giddio, Tom Hemingway, Tracey Smith, Uzo Hiramatsu, Velwyn Yossy, Veronica Mortellaro, Victor Tkachenko, Von Wolfe, Zhenya Z.