COPENHAGEN, DENMARK.- Statens Museum for Kunst presents Bjørn Nørgaard - Venus mirrors mirrors Venus, on view through October 1, 2005. Art has always mirrored itself in Antiquity, and with an eye on the present and the future, managed to reinvent itself. At Statens Museum for Kunst, artist Bjørn Nørgaard shows his supreme mastery of one of art history's greatest works Venus from Milo (from around 150 BC) in an exhibition, which using a fine blend of gravity and humour points to the past as a viable source of inspiration for artistic innovative thinking.

Venus in mutation - "Venus mirrors mirrors Venus" is the title of the highly acclaimed exhibition held at Galleri Susanne Ottesen this spring. In the hands of Bjørn Nørgaard, seven casts of the naked, armless Hellenistic goddess with its sweeping curves is partly the focal point of the exhibition and partly the starting point of a myriad of criss-cross imagery, experimental materials, quotations, and comments to art history and history itself. In the hands of Bjørn Nørgaard, the Greek goddess of love and beauty has been transformed so that she now finds herself draped in an abundance of more or less hidden references to "our great history", to artists such as Yves Klein and Joseph Beuys, to Nørgaard's own works and everything from popular culture to politics. The exhibition marks a turning point in Bjørn Nørgaard's lifelong and versatile artistic career and for this reason alone, it is important to show it again at Denmark's national gallery in continuation of 150 years of Danish sculpture in the Sculpture Street.

In the light of the Royal Cast Collection - The Royal Cast Collection also comprise a plaster cast of the famous Venus from Milo dating from 1898. The exhibition at Statens Museum for Kunst makes further reference to the classic form and the other canonical works from the history of sculpture by surrounding Bjørn Nørgaard's works with a huge photographic frieze of the interior of the Royal Cast Collection. "The inspiration from and dialogue with the classical heritage is unsurpassed in Nørgaard and in time it is our hope that the seven Venus figures will become a permanent part of the Royal Cast Collection at Toldbodgade. Here they would make an exciting addition to the collection and serve to emphasise the sense of continuity in the history of Western sculpture, demonstrating that Antiquity and Classical art as such do not have a definitive end point," says museum director Allis Helleland.