I  ❤  R A N D E R S

Art City of Denmark

02nd August – 26th September

 

 

Amanda Brix Kolstrup – Jens Axel Beck – J.V. Martin – Mette Juul – Per Neble

Søren Hüttel – Sven Dalsgaard

 

 

 

7 Positions from the Homeland of Possibilities

What do gold-painted toy ships, Las Vegas nostalgia, a high-gloss handkerchief moment, and the poetic anatomy of a vulnerable body have in common? They all lead—directly or indirectly—to Randers. Not all artists in this exhibition were born here, yet Randers exerts a magnetic pull: a place where artistic currents meet, cross, and transform—simply put, the Art City of Denmark.

 

Søren Hüttel, Bauhaus, 120x195cm, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2021.

 

 

 

The exhibition I LOVE RANDERS brings together works by Amanda Brix Kolstrup, Jens Axel Beck, J.V. Martin, Mette Juul, Per Neble, Søren Hüttel and Sven Dalsgaard. What connects them is a shared place of origin; what sets them apart are artistic directions as diverse as the rivers surrounding the city—at times meandering, at times eruptive.

Amanda Brix Kolstrup poses quiet yet fearless questions: What does illness do to a body, to a gaze, to art itself? Her works are intimate, performative reflections on fragility and resilience—tactile anatomies of being.

Jens Axel Beck combines painting, ceramics, discarded materials, and digital media into ensembles that bring everyday spaces and objects into a fragile balance. The result is images of a present oscillating between transience, restlessness, and the need for meaning.

J.V. Martin, the situationist in a golden coat, set sail with an armada of lacquered toy ships and steered into revolutionary theory. His “New Irrealism” bursts through form, color, and meaning—always collaging, acting, and disrupting.

Mette Juul turns her gaze to the quiet, familiar people of small-town America — capturing the way their eyes meet hers as she watches them. Her photographs unfold gentle portraits of everyday life, laced with a delicate, almost floating tension between observer and observed.

Per Neble, on the other hand, was the court jester among conceptual artists — earnest in his wit, provocative in his openness. His installations are never straightforward but reveal a humor that neither ingratiates nor flatters.

Meanwhile, Søren Hüttel dives into pop-cultural references like a glitter-soaked whirlpool: Las Vegas meets Star Trek, meets the structural void. His works are visual mixtapes, lit with disco shimmer.

And Sven Dalsgaard, who once taught himself to paint, left behind naturalism in favor of abstract visual languages and towering sculptures that continued to grow in his paintings. Surrealism, minimalism, Jesus from Randers — all in one body of work.

Seven artists, seven trajectories, one place: Randers – the Art City of Demark. This exhibition isn’t a declaration of love. It’s a proof of love.

 

Text by Josephine Müller

 

 

Amanda Brix Kolstrup, Suspended foundation concrete, Styrofoam, reinforcing bars, lines, wood and ropes, 220 cm x 120 cm x 60 cm, 2022.