The architecture may hint at Louisiana, but this Danish museum actually pays homage to women.
A: Ladies, contemporary artworks and waterfront views.
Maybe it’s happened to you. You’re trying to find directions to Baton Rouge’s Louisiana State Museum. Typing too quickly, you end up with results from thousands of miles away.
Denmark? You thought the museum was downtown. Well, it is. But the Danish one is worth a trip too, albeit one with a much longer travel time.
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is located about 45 minutes north of Copenhagen along the shores of the Řresund Sound in Humlebćk (pronounced hum-le-beck). Founded in 1958 by Knud W. Jensen, an art patron whose family made their wealth through cheese, Louisiana’s name comes from three women, not in any way homage to our sportsman’s paradise.
The 25 acres on which the museum sits was bought in 1855 by Alexander Brun, Master of the Royal Hunt, who in his days married three times—all to women named Louise. (The usage of the name Louise in Denmark dropped significantly in the late 19th century, but has picked up since the 1980s, according to the National Statistics Office of Denmark.) When Jensen decided to open a museum on the site, he incorporated not only Brun’s original Louisiana-named house, but also continued the name’s reverence.
With a permanent collection of more than 3,000 works by artists such as Picasso, Giacometti, Bacon, Warhol, Beuys, Rothko, Miró, Kirkeby and others, the museum has a cornucopia to stimulate eyes and minds inside its walls.
But its sculpture park is as much of a visual feast with about 65 permanent works by Calder, Ernst, Moore, Serra, Shapiro and others. As if those works and the rotating exhibitions were not enough, the museum’s waterfront views are the envy and inspiration of any artistic eye.
When Jensen was alive, he wrote, “You can indulge with a clear conscience in a spot of escapism at Louisiana, but first and foremost the idea is to show that you can make some use of art in your own personal life.”
Indeed, 500,000 visitors escape in their own ways at the museum every year, says Head of Press Susanne Hartz. Should you happen to be in the neighborhood, three exhibits are underway: The World is Yours ends Jan. 10; Green Architecture for the Future ends Dec. 18; and Faith, Hope and Love—Jacob Holdt’s America ends Feb. 7.
For more information, visit louisiana.dk.
