Young Danish Photography ´22

The annual exhibition Young Danish Photography has since 1998 presented new talents and trends on the contemporary art scene within photography. This year's exhibition raises questions about identities, desire and solidarity and asks whether we are able to understand the world without the photographic image? And where we can hide in a world full of cameras?

Young Danish Photography '22 examines and raises questions about camera technology and its impact on our lives. What does it mean to have a camera in our pocket and in our hand during all our waking (and perhaps also sleeping) hours? And who is actually watching whom in a society of surveillance and on social media? Can we even talk about boundaries between documentation, fiction and performance today, when the camera is omnipresent 24 hours a day – in our pockets and in the streets?

The artists in this year's edition of Young Danish Photography turn the camera away from themselves and take the technology of photography out of the hands of the controlling, monitoring bodies in society.

The camera, no matter how direct or indirect it is in the works, becomes a tool for the investigation of something that could be the reality in 2022: that there is no decided borderline between documentation and performance, as in Mike Spooner's music videos for the hip-hop group Shooter Gang. And in the portraits of the father of the Greenlandic-Danish artist Nina Sikkersoq.

The participating artists use the camera or existing photographs and archive material in different ways to investigate and depict reality based on their own personal relations and private spheres, as in the intimate portraits of Ida Dorthea Thorrud's so-called muse, Lully. Or based on topics such as society, history or culture. As in the works by Jupiter Child that include archive material of press images from, among other events, the civil war in Mozambique, the country of the artist’s origin. And when Aysha Amin depicts the demolition of public housing complexes in Gellerup and asks about solidarity in society.

Together, the works in the exhibition emphasize that, in a time when the camera is ubiquitous, it is perhaps more important than ever to claim loving and artistic ownership of the photographic image.

About the curator
Mathias Kryger (b. 1977) has curated exhibitions such as William Forsythe in the Company of Others (2015) and Ovartaci & The Art of Madness (2017) for Kunsthal Charlottenborg and worked on the exhibition– and podcast-projects A Painter of our Time(with Andreas Führer and Rhea Dall) in 2020 for Institut Funder Bakke about the CIA and their influence on the arts in Scandinavia during The Cold War and Psychopathia Sexualisfor Overgaden in 2021, looking at artistic affects made in response to the aids-epidemic in Denmark. Moreover, Mathias Kryger has worked as a performance artist, as a pop-singer and in 2019 as a TV host for the TV show Makværk eller Mesterværk for Denmark’s Radio about the entanglement of art and finance. Since 2015, Mathias Kryger has been an art critic for Danish daily newspaper, Politiken.

Event program:
Exhibition opening: The opening takes place November 4 from 5-7pm with free entrance for everyone. The exhibition is opened by Mathias Kryger and the artists will be present.

FotoForum: Artist talk Young Danish Photography '22
In connection with the exhibition, an artist talk will be held with the participating artists, moderated by Mathias Kryger. Here you can hear more about the artists and the works in the exhibition. The talk will be held November 24 at 5-6.30pm.

Meet the curator for a guided tour in the exhibition
Mathias Kryger will give guided tours in the exhibition and talk about the works and the ideas behind the exhibition. The guided tours will be held November 10 and December 8 at 5-5.30pm.

The exhibition is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation. FotoForum is supported by DJ:Fotograferne.

Tags for the exhibition: #ungdanskfotografi22 #youngdanishphotography22

Image: © Nina Sikkersoq, Assigiippugut, 2018

See the exhibition catalogue here