Published 16 December 2024
Press photos for programme 2025
In 2025, the Glyptotek invites guests to enjoy an exciting series of exhibitions of works ranging from contemporary art to French masterpieces – and will introduce you to a famous emperor, who is returning Turkey. The key names are Alia Farid, Paul Gauguin and Edgar Degas. Longer exhibition runs and increased focus on the museum’s own collection reflect the Glyptotek’s goal of presenting a more sustainable programme, while also providing guests with the opportunity for a more in-depth, immersive experience.
Not only is the Glyptotek the leading museum of antiquities in the Nordic region, it also possesses one of Europe’s finest collections of French art (from 1800 to 1930): art that will constitute the common thread of the 2025 exhibition programme.
“The exhibitions at the Glyptotek aim to provide space for contemplation and top quality art experiences. The Glyptotek is also dedicated to devising sustainable exhibition formats by reducing the number of loans from abroad and granting the museum’s unique collections and research a more significant place in this year’s programme. The programme is aimed at both classical museum guests and new, multi-generational target groups,” says Gertrud Hvidberg-Hansen, Director of the Glyptotek.
An Emperor Returns
The repatriation of ancient artefacts to Türkiye
20 December 2024 – 4 February 2025
In the spring of 2023, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek received a written request – a so-called ‘repatriation claim’ – from the Turkish embassy in Denmark to return an ancient bronze portrait of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (145-211 AD) to Türkiye. The museum and the Danish authorities have granted the request, and the bronze portrait is now on display for one last time before being returned permanently to its country of origin.
This repatriation is partly the result of the museum’s own archaeological, technical and archival studies, which confirmed that the portrait originated from Boubon in southwestern Turkey, and was exported and sold on the international art market illegally.
As a result of this research, the museum also detected 48 ancient terracotta architectural decorations, acquired for the museum in 1974. These artefacts proved to originate from the archaeological site of Düver in Turkey: they were looted in the 1960s and 1970s and exported from Turkey illegally.
After meticulous research and documentation, the Glyptotek also submitted these items for repatriation to the Turkish state. This has now been approved by the authorities. Before the imperial portrait and the terracotta ornaments are permanently handed over to Turkey, the Glyptotek is presenting a final exhibition of a selection of them.
Alia Farid
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek: 2 October 2025 – 31 May 2026
Copenhagen Contemporary: 2 October 2025 – 23 March 2026
Next autumn, the Glyptotek and Copenhagen Contemporary are presenting the first solo exhibition in Denmark of work by the Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican artist Alia Farid. The exhibition is the third and final component of an ambitious series of exhibitions titled Hosting Histories – Revisiting Cultural Heritage of the Middle East and Beyond (2023-2025), developed in conjunction between Glyptotek and CC.
Alia Farid (b.1985) lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. Her work explores the relationship between industrial practices and hand-made objects as a method of critical inquiry into the experience of being in and belonging in the midst of global precarity. Sculptures of drinking fountains in the shape of water vessels, enlarged amulets combining ancient and modern materials, films witnessing the ecological consequences of extractive industries in the Global South: her work pushes against colonial narratives and explores how materials and forms transmute across time and space.
Alia Farid has had solo exhibitions in: Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Oslo); Chisenhale Gallery (London); Kunsthalle Basel; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (Missouri); Kunstinstituut Melly (Rotterdam); Portikus (Frankfurt am Main); and CAC Passerelle (Brest, France). She has upcoming solo exhibitions at Contemporary Art Museum Houston in partnership with Rivers Institute, and Detroit Institute of Arts.
Degas’ Obsession
8 May 2025 – 29 November 2026
This spring, the Glyptotek will tell the story of Edgar Degas’ Dancers Practising in the Foyer, which belongs to the Glyptotek’s French collection. Until now, timewise, it was hard to place the work among Degas’ ballet paintings: the artist’s working methods created mysteries for posterity.
Throughout his career, Degas produced many images of ballet dancers at the Paris Opera, both on and off stage. Throughout his life, he was obsessed by ballet as a motif: he explored its movement, compositions and poses.
Some argue that Dancers Practising in the Foyer may have been painted around 1882-83, when Degas painted several pictures featuring this motif. Others, though, have placed it around 1887-90 because of the way it is painted. Not until now has the Glyptotek – in collaboration with the Getty Research Institute – got closer to a picture of the actual date. New technical studies, which reveal details and layers in the painting, have finally facilitated more accurate dating.
Degas’ Obsession is a new way of presenting research. The Glyptotek is delving into a single major work, inviting guests into the laboratory and providing them with insight into the studies that help researchers understand the genesis of a painting and help them date a work. How do we use modern technology to examine such a painting? And how do conservators and art historians work together in an endeavour to understand paint, brushstrokes, and motifs?
The research project on which the presentation is based is a collaboration with the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, USA.
Paul Gauguin: First Impressions
8 May 2025 – 6 December 2026
May will see the opening of an entire exhibition floor dedicated to one of the museum’s most distinctive characters: the French artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). The floor will feature a display of a wide selection of Gauguin’s works from the museum’s unique collection, including paintings, ceramics, drawings, and woodcarvings.
His symbolic use of color, boldly applied in broad flat areas outlined with dark paint, have made Paul Gauguin one of the most iconic – and most controversial – figures in the history of Western art. To this day, his lengthy stay in the former French colony of Tahiti, his intimate relationships with young girls, and his romanticised depictions of other peoples and cultures often arouse strong emotions and intense debate.
In the light of the artist’s circuitous trajectory and radical imagery, this presentation of works from the museum’s collection invites guests to reflect on the importance of the complex legacy of Paul Gauguin the human being and artist – a legacy that balances groundbreaking aesthetics and problematic ethics and challenges our understanding of the role and scope of art in a postcolonial world.
What the Crocodile Mummies Were Hiding
From 28 January 2025
In 1911, two small crocodile mummies arrived at the Glyptotek along with other finds from the famous English archaeologist Flinders Petrie’s excavations in Egypt, specifically Hawara at the Fayum Oasis to the west of the River Nile.
It was not until almost 100 years later, during an X-ray examination at the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Science, that scientists discovered that there was indeed a small crocodile in one mummy, but nothing but hay and a stick in the other.
This small presentation at the Glyptotek will recount the cunning story of the two crocodile mummies, tell you all about the crocodile god Sobek and reveal why the Egyptians made animal mummies.
For their generous support of the exhibitions, the museum would like to thank:
Alia Farid:
Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond
Det Obelske Familiefond
Ny Carlsbergfondet
Sportgoodsfonden
Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin:
Knud Højgaards Fond
Jorck’s Fond
Hoffmann og Husmans Fond
Toyota Fonden
Gangstedfonden
