The New Carlsberg Foundation has donated a number of artworks to the new rock museum in Roskilde. With the donated works, the museum can now continue the tradition from Roskilde Museum, ROMU, of integrating relevant contemporary art into cultural history exhibitions, thus incorporating pictorial art interpretations of cultural heritage statements.
The donation includes the video installation Visual Drone (Unresolved), 2014, by the British artist Graham Dolphin. The installation features seven large plasma screens with loudspeakers and is on display in a separate exhibition room at the foot of the red carpet leading up to the museum entrance. This makes the installation accessible to the public around the clock. Inside the museum, Dolphin is represented with the works Door, 2012, and I Just Shot John Lennon, 2012.
We met up with Graham Dolphin for a talk about his art when he visited Denmark to complete the installation of Visual Drone (Unresolved). In the film he talks about the thoughts behind the tree pieces:
In the museum exhibition rooms, the artists Günther Beckers, Don Van Vliet, Brian DeGraw, Knud Odde, Toke Tietze Mortensen, Lydia Lunch, Dexter Dalwood, David Byrne and Lars H.U.G. are represented with works of pictorial art. The works are reproduced in the image gallery below.
Museum Director Frank Birkebæk comments on what the artworks mean for the museum:
‘There’s art in rock, but there’s also rock in art. Many of the greatest stars of rock also express themselves in painting and sculpture, and with great artistic power. This aspect of pictorial art is important for our understanding of rock music and rock performers. The New Carlsberg Foundation’s donation gives RAGNAROCK an opportunity to complete the presentation of the full artistic scope of rock and related music genres.’
RAGNAROCK is part of the museum group ROMU, and is a museum of national cultural history, which aims to convey the concept of the youth generation and its emergence after the Second World War. The museum addresses the youth generation’s diverse influence on the development of society at large and the contribution of young people in shaping society’s appearance. It addresses the role of rock music as a global medium of communication and a social, political and artistic form of expression.
