Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website New partnership ensures nine more years of the popular SMK Fridays art events
marzo 21, 2023 - smk.helmets

New partnership ensures nine more years of the popular SMK Fridays art events

Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale. 

New #partnership ensures nine more years of the popular #smk Fridays art events
Since 2013, #smk Fridays has been a key social and experimental Friday highlight on the Copenhagen scene. Mixing art, talks, music and drinks, these events have created a different kind of after-hours museum experience at #smk – The National Gallery of Denmark. Now, a nine-year strategic #partnership between #smk and the Bikuben Foundation paves the way for #smk Fridays setting all-new standards for communities with art at the centre.
PRESS RELEASE

After ten years, 58 fun-filled Fridays and almost 200,000 guests, the #smk Fridays events are firmly established as an integrated part of #smk. For seven Fridays each year, young and old alike have flocked to Denmark's national gallery to be part of this innovative Friday format, which explores new approaches to what a museum visit can be.

Previous events have included overnight stays at the museum, conversation salons, audio-only cinema experiences, intimate performances, sound healing, joint workshops, concerts set amidst art, art talks and expert insights. Always based on SMK's rich collection covering 700 years of art and on the current exhibitions, always springing from a desire to surprise, and always free.

A #partnership focused on innovation
The Bikuben Foundation has supported #smk Fridays throughout the years. Issuing a new grant, the foundation now enables the popular format to continue for another nine years. In a new departure, #smk and the Bikuben Foundation have entered into a strategic #partnership that will serve to further develop #smk Fridays and help support SMK's stated wish to be a meeting place for more –and more different – people. With this long-term #partnership in place, the #smk Fridays events can explore even greater levels of ambition.

'The original dream behind #smk Fridays was to make #smk relevant to young people and to create a different and informal museum experience especially aimed at them. The young people came, but the format has proven attractive to guests of all ages. And that has sparked an even greater ambition in us: to make #smk Fridays relevant and topical to even more people – and more different people – in digital as well as physical communities, nationally and internationally,' says SMK's director, Mikkel Bogh, and continues:

'As Denmark's national gallery, we want to be a place that nurtures community and conversation, and we now have the opportunity to devote even more effort to doing exactly that. At the same time, we can let the experiences spread to the rest of the museum, making #smk Fridays an engine for learning for our entire organisation, for example as regards issues such as diversity and digital opportunities.'


Developing the organisation
The new #partnership will build on the learning accrued at #smk since 2013, which tells us that, it is possible to reframe museum visits and who the visitors are, but doing so requires long-term, persistent effort. You need time to experiment and test, because the format must be constantly reinvented and updated to ensure current relevance and topicality. The format must make sense to the museum's existing and potential guests in order to have an even larger and more diverse group of people participate and experience the importance of art.

'SMK Fridays has always been envisioned as a laboratory where experimenting, failing, testing and learning are core values. We are now entering an innovative development phase where SMK's potential can be further developed through a focus on diversity, the digital realm, international community and, not least, learning and knowledge sharing. With our strategic #partnership, we make time, space and resources available for innovation processes, and it will also be possible for #smk to employ the specialists needed to break new ground,' says Søren Kaare-Andersen, CEO of the Bikuben Foundation.

The new grant period takes effect from August 2023, and the #partnership is divided into three phases, each covering three years. The first grant is DKK 13 million.

News correlate

marzo 28, 2023
gennaio 20, 2023
agosto 25, 2022

Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale. SMK Thy launches its new season on 1 April, presenting an exhibition creat...

Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale. Last exhibited in 1932, Carl Bloch's monumental painting Prometheus Unboun...

Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale. This September, #smk (Statens Museum for Kunst) presents an exhibition fea...