In 2015, Faaborg Museum celebrates the centenary of the inauguration of the museum building designed by the architect Carl Petersen. In 1915 Faaborg Museum was a museum of contemporary art established by and for the artists’ group the Funen Painters who all belonged to the generation born during the 1860s and 1870s. The collection comprising paintings and sculpture had been established for funds provided for the purpose by Mads Rasmussen, a local manufacturer of tinned foods. He also financed the building of Faaborg Museum.
Such courage and generosity is unique – but perhaps easily overlooked today when museums, in the province, too, are a common feature and when the works by the Funen Painters no longer constitute provocative contemporary art. A breath of fresh air from the countryside, but nevertheless part of the important currents in Danish art history!
To mark this occasion, Faaborg Museum has invited a group of Danish artists – all born roughly 100 years after the Funen Painters in the 1960s and the 1970s – to add a contemporary twist to the museum works. Like the Funen Painters, they will be reinterpreting nature and thereby creating a dialogue with the museum collection.
The underlying idea of the exhibition Bring in nature! is more than a desire to mark the museum’s intrepid past as a home to contemporary art. We hope that the artists will succeed in placing the museum collection into a new perspective by bringing kindred motifs and approaches to bear in their artistic portrayal of nature.
