FACE TO FACE | THORVALDSEN & PORTRAITURE

As part of the celebration of Bertel Thorvaldsen’s 250th birthday in 2020, we celebrated the immersive qualities of the sculpture with a large exhibition about Thorvaldsen’s sculptural portraits.

These days we are surrounded by two dimensional portraits like never before, being shared on social media and all around us in our everyday lives. It is quite a different story when it comes to the three-dimensional, sculptural portraits, however. They stand before us as physical manifestations, frozen in time and holding a certain potential to affect us.

Thorvaldsen’s portraits were displayed alongside models from Greco-Roman antiquity, works from his own time, and present-day portrait interventions by Danish artists. These interventions were created especially for this exhibition by Jeannette Ehlers, Lise Harlev, Merete Pryds Helle, Nikolaj Recke and Trine Søndergaard.

With the FACE TO FACE | THORVALDSEN & PORTRAITURE, Thorvaldsens Museum  sought to create a new understanding of the three-dimensional portrait.

The exhibition was on show from March 8 – December 30 2020. It was produced in close collaboration with University of Copenhagen and Die Glyptothek in München, who from March 26 to September 12 2021 presented the exhibition Bertel Thorvaldsen und Ludwig I. Der dänische Bildhauer im bayerischem Auftrag

Exhibition film

Reexperience the exhibtion Face to Face | Thorvaldsen & Portraiture in the exhibition film which takes us through the main themes of the show. 

 

See the film here:

Portrait interventions

In four video portraits author Merete Pryds Helle and artists Lise Harlev, Trine Søndergaard, Nikolaj Recke and Jeannette Ehlers share their thoughts and artistic research into the portrait medium which were behind their contributions to the exhibition. 

 

See the films here:






Credit

All films are arranged, filmed and produced by Line Esbjørn and Rine Rodin for Thorvaldsens Museum in close dialogue with the artists and exhibition curators. The texts in the exhibition films are spoken by Merete Pryds Helle (DK) and Agathe Søndergaard Helle (UK). The music in the exhibition film is arranged by Kalle Esbjørn Thøfner. The films are produced with support by the Velux Foundation.