DIVINATION, OMEN, UNIVERSAL DIVINATION, SHAMANISM, COSTUMES

05 – 31 August 2014 | open Tues – Sun, 14.00 – 19.00
WORKS BY THOMAS GUDMAN RAFAEL SIMONSEN
FOR THE AGE GROUP: 0-100 YEARS.
Ethnographic collection; recent times /1980-2000
The July-August exhibition follows a new path in the museum world, as we now, in addition to photography, include ethnography , similar to Louisiana and the Museum of Modern Art / New York.

Thomas Gudman Rafael Simonsen's display `Divination' was created in the 1980s and 90s , as a counterculture to the tie-dyed surface culture of the yuppies.

The decades were marked by the Cold War/fall of the wall, but also by free sex, trans and diva nostalgia such as Bowie, Hagen and Grace Jones plus Pride Parades and Drag Queens. All these ingredients made up Thomas Gudman's part of the subculture.

In the middle of the fun, Thomas received a bird's warning, a revelation, which became the catalyst for a spiritual search that, through the 80s and 90s, led to him creating a number of meticulously elaborated works with references to the world's great religions and their overarching source.

The works are now on display for the first time ever - at the Gallopperiet, the city's Museum of Art. Obvious, as Thomas is a good old friend of Christiania.

Visiting the exhibition in the tribal room in the Loppebygningen is like visiting the National Museum's most exotic ethnographic collections: gay culture, fetishism, spiritual symbols, swan necks and stag tiaras, big city shaman costumes, rock stars, patina, glitter and spiritual guidance, which together provide a condensed temple atmosphere - a strange experience for everyone between the ages of 1-100.

The exhibition shows a picture of the times. And funnily enough, another trend in the museum world: at the Venice Biennale a few years ago, the artist duo Elmgreen and Dragset built a fictional and mysterious modern home - with a swimming pool etc.

The Gallopperiet's exhibition shows an existing home , which is also a hitherto hidden collection, as the works usually adorn Thomas's small apartment in the middle of CPH. An apartment which is precisely a veritable museum of the happy eighties and a reflection on time and Thomas Gudman's in-depth spiritual search. A snapshot of time.

Ingrid Kiopmanhafn-Borum
Museum phone: GALLOPPERIET +45 22240908