COPENHAGEN.- CHART 2026 has opened in Copenhagen, spreading contemporary art well beyond the walls of Kunsthal Charlottenborg and into some of the city’s most familiar public spaces.
Running through August 30, this year’s edition brings together the art fair’s core gallery program with performances, public art, installations and citywide routes that extend into the Copenhagen Metro and Tivoli Gardens. The approach reflects CHART’s continuing effort to position itself not simply as a commercial fair, but as a broader meeting place for Nordic contemporary art.
One of the clearest signs of that ambition can be found underground. CHART has expanded its collaboration with the Copenhagen Metro, integrating video art and performances into the transit network. At Kongens Nytorv, commuters and visitors encounter an eight-meter-long pink limousine by Danish artist Alberte Skronski — the sort of unexpected intervention designed to catch people before they ever set foot inside an art fair.
The Metro also forms part of CHART’s Art Tours, which invite people to discover works already embedded in Copenhagen’s streets and public spaces. Previous editions offered running, walking and cycling routes; this year Metro and car routes have been added.
For CHART director Julie Quottrup Silbermann, the goal is to make people pay closer attention to art they may already pass every day.
“With the routes to art in public space, we want to democratise art,” Silbermann said. “Art in the public space is free and open to everyone, but it is often overlooked.”
That idea of bringing art into everyday life continues around Charlottenborg, where a series of free performances adds a live dimension to the fair. Among them is Subvocal, a hypnotic performance by Aapo Nikkanen and Raudie McLeod. The Icelandic Love Corporation takes a more playful approach, marking menopause by awarding “menopause diplomas,” while Miriam Kongstad’s Hard Play looks at how childhood games can continue to shape identity and power relationships in adult life.
CHART has also returned to Tivoli Gardens, one of Copenhagen’s best-known landmarks, with an outdoor exhibition that transforms the historic Parterre Gardens into a setting for contemporary art.
Works by Klara Lilja, Martin Brandt Hansen, Anna Fasshauer and Kiyoshi Yamamoto are installed throughout the gardens, while Danish collective SUPERFLEX has placed a neon work in the middle of Tivoli’s lake. Reading Cry Me A River, the piece becomes one of the exhibition’s most visible interventions.
Back at Charlottenborg, even the courtyard has been reimagined.
This year’s winning CHART Public project, Pantomime, was created by architects Mads Vagn Jacobsen and Frederik Lykkeberg Larsen together with artist Oliver Sundqvist. Inspired by pantomime theatre and the atmosphere of a travelling circus arriving temporarily in a city, the installation turns the historic courtyard into a stage-like environment for art, conversation and social encounters.
The setting is also hosting food by Kadeau, the Copenhagen restaurant that received its third Michelin star earlier this year.
Inside the fair itself, CHART has welcomed several galleries making their first appearance at the event. Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Avlskarl and von Bartha are among the new Danish participants, joined by Finland’s Galerie Forsblom and Galerie Nordenhake from Sweden. Together with returning exhibitors, they present a cross-section of contemporary art from across the Nordic region.
But CHART is also looking beyond established collectors.
Its Start Collecting with CHART initiative is returning with a selection of works shown in Festsalen at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. The project is intended to make purchasing art feel less intimidating for people who may never have considered themselves collectors.
Works in the selection include pieces by artists such as Per Kirkeby, Evan Roth, Fatima Moallim, Farshad Farzankia, Alexander Tovborg and Emma Sarpaniemi. CHART has also been exploring the habits of younger collectors through its online journal, asking what motivates a new generation to buy art and live with it.
Founded in 2013 by five Copenhagen galleries, CHART has grown into an event that combines the traditional machinery of an art fair with talks, performances, music, exhibitions and public projects. That combination is especially visible this year: a visitor can move from gallery booths at Charlottenborg to a neon installation floating in Tivoli, encounter a performance on the Metro, or simply follow a route through Copenhagen looking for art already hidden in plain sight.
CHART 2026 continues at Kunsthal Charlottenborg and locations across Copenhagen through August 30.
