Akhøj’s investigations cover long periods of time. He borrows the anthropologists’ and historians’ tools but his commentary targets today’s conditions.
Kasper Akhøj (born 1976 in Copenhagen, Denmark) studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany and at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Kasper Akhøj completed the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York in 2009. Kasper Akhøj’s often essayistic works are characterised by what might be called conceptual storytelling. They are based on his consistent documenting of objects from forgotten art, design and architecture histories, and also the institutions that harbour them. Akhøj’s investigations cover long periods of time. He borrows the anthropologists’ and historians’ tools but his commentary targets today’s conditions. To be able to recreate and analyse historical situations, he must gain access to as much adequate information as possible. Yet in the finished works he allows elements of fiction to penetrate the documentary. He emphasises the specific and the personal – concrete lived history – and avoids geopolitical simplification. The works become subjective statements, relying on but also challenging historical occurrences.
He has held recent solo exhibitions at Nouveau Musée National de Monaco; the De La Warr Pavilion, United Kingdom; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, United States; Baltimore Museum of Art, United States; and WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Belgium. His work has also been shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the 55th and 56th Venice Biennials; the 28th and 31st São Paulo Biennials; the 11th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates; and MoMA PS1, New York. In 2018 he won the Faena Prize for the Arts together with Brazilian artist Tamar Guimarães, and will have solo exhibitions at the Faena Art Center in Buenos Aires and Faena Forum in Miami, as well as participate in group exhibitions at Museo Morelense de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico, and at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. His work is part of the collections of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Frac des Pays de la Loire, Nantes; and Nouveau Musée National de Monaco.