Exhibition
March 22, 2025 to March 31, 2029
MAPS – Museum of Art in Public Spaces, Koge, Denmark
permanent loans
MAPS presents its largest international exhibition to date, The Story of Public Art. The exhibition tells the story of groundbreaking artistic experiments in public spaces from the 1960s to the present. The Story of Public Art presents over 120 artists from more than 40 countries in an organic and dynamic exhibition format that will evolve throughout its four-year duration.
The Story of Public Art explores what artists do in public spaces. The exhibition draws connections to the lives we live and address, through the artist’s perspective, significant societal themes across time and geography. The exhibition offers an experience of art’s international reach and significance, created in dialogue with its contemporary context. It highlights time-based works that have become landmarks for future generations, as well as pieces that have changed our perception of identity, power structures, biopolitics, desire, labor, social relations, nature, and reality.
The Story of Public Art will transform the museum building and branch out into public spaces.
The exhibition is divided into two parts:
Dancing in the Streets (On Power) – The first part of the exhibition showcases artists’ performances, actions, manifestations, and media interventions in cities worldwide. From Warsaw and Rio de Janeiro to Tamale and Times Square – and across media from the 1980’s Spectacolor billboards to today’s AI world-building.
Explosions (On Expansion) – The second part of the exhibition explores artistic experiments in landscapes and the tension between nature and the human-made. From the 1960’s Arte Povera and Earth Art to contemporary artistic investigations of art forms that merge with organic life forms and artificial nature.
MAPS’ atrium will, as part of The Story of Public Art’s opening, be transformed into a live performance installation by the Cypriot artist Maria Hassabi. The installation will explore the museum space through movements, reflections, and encounters, offering new perspectives on art as independent public spaces.
For the entire duration of the exhibition, the SpallArt collection presents Günter Brus's Wiener Spaziergang from 1965. The pictures tell the story of the attempt to bring “Viennese Actionism” out of the underground. Read more
MAPS – Museum of Art in Public Spaces
Nørregade 29
4600 Køge, Denmark