“Nature no longer exists. That wild, untamed nature, untouched by human beings, is a thing of the past.”

So states the author Josefine Klougart in her essay After Nature. Today is the opening of an eponymous exhibition: a kind of 3-D essay, in which the author’s texts will interact with the Glyptotek’s landscape paintings. The sensuous design of the exhibition is the work of the set designer duo Vang Stensgaard.

In After Nature – A New Reading of the Glyptotek’s Paintings by Writer Josefine Klougart, Josefine Klougart uses the prism of art to study the relationship of humans with nature. Nature as we knew it no longer exists. Klougart explores its beauty, and its disappearance from our modern reality.

The exhibition and the text go hand in hand; both feature seven ‘chapters’. The artworks paint a picture of the period when industrialisation made an indelible mark on the climate. The exhibition includes masterpieces from the Glyptotek’s collection: by French painters such as Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Henri Rousseau; and by Danish painters such as Christen Købke, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and Johan Thomas Lundbye.

As a natural extension of the exhibition experience, the Glyptotek is publishing a catalogue containing the full-length version of Josefine Klougart’s essay.

“I hope that together the text and the exhibition will kindle an aesthetic, as opposed to intellectual, notion of art: a notion that is swirling rather than linear; a notion whose goal is not to arrive at conclusions, but to pave the way for new, concrete thoughts about, and perspectives on this monstrous theme.” Josefine Klougart.

About the author Josefine Klougart:

The author Josefine Klougart (b. 1985) lives in Copenhagen. She read history of art and literature at Aarhus University, before completing graduate studies at Forfatterskolen (The Danish Academy of Creative Writing) in Copenhagen.

Klougart’s works have been translated into 14 languages. As a teacher of literature she has been employed as a visiting professor at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Since her debut in 2010, Josefine Klougart has published six novels and numerous essays.

Her writing tackles themes such as family, nature and death.

Glyptoteket
After Nature – A New Reading of the Glyptotek’s Paintings by Writer Josefine Klougart
October 12th, 2023 - August 11th, 2024
Exhibition design: Vang Stensgaard