Elmgreen and Dragset

Life and work

The duo met in Copenhagen in 1994, when Michael Elmgreen, who was born in the city in 1961, was writing and performing poetry, and Ingar Dragset, a Norwegian born in 1969, was studying theater. They started collaborating in 1995 and moved to Berlin in 1997. In 2006, they bought a large 1000m² former water-pumping station dating to 1924 in Berlin’s Neukölln borough from the city and converted it into a studio. In 2008, Elmgreen moved to London, and in 2015, he moved back to Berlin.

Since 1997, the artists have presented a great number of architectural and sculptural installations in an ongoing series of works entitled 'Powerless Structures' in which they transformed the conventions of the 'white cube' gallery space, creating galleries suspended from the ceiling, sunk into the ground or turned upside down. For the Istanbul Biennial in 2001, they constructed a full-scale model of a typical Modernist Kunsthalle descending into the ground while located outdoor among ancient ruins. Their work has also been shown in the Berlin, Istanbul, Liverpool, Moscow, São Paulo, Singapore, Gwangju Biennials.

Further exhibitions include transforming the Bohen Foundation in New York into a 13th Street Subway Station in 2004; their best-known project Prada Marfa, a Prada boutique inaugurated in 2005 and sited in the middle of the Texan desert; and their exhibition The Welfare Show in 2005-2006 at Serpentine Gallery, London / The Power Plant, Toronto / Bergen Kunsthall, Norway / BAWAG Foundation, Vienna, which was critically acclaimed.

For the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009 they curated the exhibition The Collectors in the neighboring Danish and Nordic Pavilions (which include Norway, Sweden, and Denmark), an unprecedented merging of two international exhibition venues. For their show, they invited fellow artists Maurizio Cattelan, Tom of Finland, Han & Him, Laura Horelli, William E. Jones, Terence Koh, Klara Lidén, Jonathan Monk, Nico Muhly, Norway Says, Nina Saunders, and Wolfgang Tillmans, among others.

In 2011, their sculpture Powerless Structures, Fig. 101 was chosen as the winner of the Fourth Plinth Commission to be displayed on the fourth plinth of London's Trafalgar Square. Their bronze sculpture of a boy astride a rocking horse questions the tradition for war monuments to celebrate either victory or defeat.

In 2013 they curated an extensive public art program in Munich entitled “A Space Called Public/Hoffentlich Öffentlich” and transformed the former textile galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum into the grand family home of fictional architect Norman Swann. Their exhibition series “Biography” took place in 2014–2105 at the Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo and the SMK–National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen. In 2015 their exhibition “Aéroport Mille Plateaux” turned the PLATEAU Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul into an airport inspired by the ideas of philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

For their solo exhibition “The Well Fair” in 2016, the duo transformed the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing into a fictional art fair. Also in 2016, the artists installed Van Gogh’s Ear at Rockefeller Center in New York; the 9-meter (30-foot) high, empty swimming pool stands upright on its shortest side, supported by a visible construction on its backside.

Permanent installations

In 2003, Elmgreen & Dragset won the German Government's competition for a memorial in Tiergarten park in Berlin, in memory of the gay victims of the Nazi regime, which was unveiled in May 2008.

Performative works

In 2007, Elmgreen & Dragset developed Drama Queens, a theatre play about Twentieth Century art history with six remote-controlled versions of iconic sculptures, for Skulptur Projekte Münster. During the 2008 Frieze Art Fair, they staged Drama Queens, this time enlivened by the voices of leading stage stars such as Kevin Spacey, at The Old Vic in London.

Recognition

Elmgreen & Dragset were nominated for the Hugo Boss Prize in 2000, and in 2002 they won the Preis der Nationalgalerie at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. The artists were awarded the Arken Art Prize in 2006. In 2009, Elmgreen & Dragset were awarded Special Mention at the Venice Biennale for The Collectors, their highly elaborate exhibition for the Danish and Nordic Pavilions. For the same exhibition, also in 2009, they were awarded the Kritikerlaget/Norwegian Critics’ Association Kunstkritikerprisen/Art Critics’ Prize.

In 2012 they won an Eckersberg Medal and were also awarded the Carl Nielsen og Anne Marie Carl-Nielsens Legat/Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Grant in conjunction with their exhibition at Den Frie in Copenhagen.

In 2015 they were awarded an honorary doctorate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU): "https://www.ntnu.edu/phd/honorary-doctors".

Solo Exhibitions (selected)

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

Group Exhibitions (selected)

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

Collections

Elmgreen & Dragset's work is in the permanent collection of several museums in Europe, such as the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek; the Moderna Museet in Stockholm; the Malmö Konsthall; the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, and the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea in Santiago de Compostela. Other public collections include Anyang Foundation for Culture & Arts; Arken Museum of Art, Ishøj; Bergen Kunstmuseum; Kunsthalle Bremen; Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI; Dokk1, Aarhus; Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo; Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; MUMOK (Museum Moderner Kunst), Vienna; MUSAC (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León), León; Museion, Bolzano; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Nasjonalmuseet Oslo; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Sculpture International Rotterdam; Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden - Skulpturensammlung; Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.

Commissions

Catalogues