Past
Zoltan Ará, Cassie Augusta Jørgensen, Filip Berg, Karim Boumjimar, Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Nicolas Maxim Endlicher, Elmgreen & Dragset, Brendan Fernandes, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Carlos Motta, Niels Nedergaard, Maria Thastum, Maria Wæhrens: Psychopathia Sexualis
13 Aug – 9 Oct 2021
With the exhibition Psychopathia Sexualis, Overgaden brings the important political work on diversity, respect, and recognition into focus. The project’s podcast collaboration, statement T-shirts, and exhibition of art, campaigns, activism, and cabaret from 1981 until today thematize the pathologization of sexualities, and initiate a new Danish LGBTQIA+ art history.
Psychopathia Sexualis is a prismatic exhibition project exploring the question of (psycho)pathologized sexualities with particular attention to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its muted histories from the media to fine arts, from cabaret to activism, in Denmark and beyond.
The exhibition—which also includes a podcast produced in collaboration with The Lake Radio and HEN, a t-shirt line co-created with Filip Berg and Han Kjøbenhavn—hijacks its title from the 1886 medical forensic study Psychopathia Sexualis, one of the first books on psychopathology and sexuality by Austrian psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing.
Background of the exhibition, and a central question
The year 1981 plays a central part in the exhibition. In 2021 it is 40 years since homosexuality was removed from the list of psychiatric disorders in Denmark.* It has also been 40 years since the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) published an article in its weekly journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly about a rare lung disease detected in five otherwise well, homosexual men in Los Angeles—what was later known as AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome).
The exhibition project Psychopathia Sexualis takes these two historical events from 1981 as its starting points and examines the psychopathologization of gender, sex, and sexualities by asking the fundamental question: where is the Danish art history that deals with HIV and AIDS?
Artists: Zoltan Ará, Filip Berg, Karim Boumjimar, Elmgreen & Dragset, Nicolas Maxim Endlicher, Brendan Fernandes, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Cassie Augusta Jørgensen, Carlos Motta, Niels Nedergaard, Maria Thastum, Maria Wæhrens, and more.
The exhibition is curated by Mathias Kryger in collaboration with O—Overgaden and is a part of Copenhagen21—EuroGames & WorldPride.
The exhibition is supported by Knud Højgaard’s Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation.
Related
- Events10 Oct 2021, 12:00 – 14:002 Oct 2021, 15:30 – 16:3013 Aug 2021, 13:00 – 20:00
- PodcastsPsychopathia Sexualis S1E1: Will the AIDS crisis in Denmark finally get its own cultural history?
What actually happened back when HIV and AIDS became the new reality? What happened on the Danish art scene during the years of the AIDS crisis’ tight grip around the world? And why, when you ask about the relationship between art and AIDS in a Danish context, do the answers seem somewhat reluctant and toned down?
The exhibition’s curator, and host of this podcast, is art historian Mathias Kryger and in the studio for the series’ first episode are gender researcher Michael Nebeling Petersen and art historian Mathias Danbolt in conversation about their new research project “The Cultural History of the Danish AIDS Crisis”. The podcast is produced by Jan Høgh Stricker and Kasper Vang from The Lake Radio.
Psychopathia Sexualis is a podcast created for the exhibition of the same name at O—Overgaden (13 August – 10 October 2021).Psychopathia Sexualis S1E2 – Who was Niels Nedergaard?In this episode of Psychopathia Sexualis we have moved from the radio studio into a large, beautiful art studio in an old soft drink factory at the outer part of Nørrebro in Copenhagen. Artist Viera Collaro took over this space in 1981 together with another artist, Niels Nedergaard, who many points to when asked about the relation between the AIDS crisis and the Danish art scene. He lived openly as gay and died from an AIDS-related disease at the age of 43.
This story begins in the 1970s at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen where Viera meets Niels for the first time.
Psychopathia Sexualis is a podcast created for the exhibition of the same name at O—Overgaden (13 August – 10 October 2021) and is produced by Jan Høgh Stricker and Kasper Vang from The Lake Radio. Host: Mathias Kryger.
Psychopathia Sexualis S1E3: The History of SexualityIn this episode we dig deeper into the history of sexuality together with professor and sexologist Christian Graugaard. And we ask about how German-Austrian psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s clinical forensic study Psychopathia Sexualis from 1886 has influenced the way we understand sexuality and identity.
Psychopathia Sexualis is a podcast created for the exhibition of the same name at O—Overgaden (13 August – 10 October 2021) and is produced by Jan Høgh Stricker and Kasper Vang from The Lake Radio. Host: Mathias Kryge.
Psychopathia Sexualis S1E4: When “The Gay Plague” hit DenmarkIn this fourth and final episode we’re discussing how HIV and AIDS were tackled politically and what possible treatments the health system managed to establish. What is a condom really and how was the so-called “condom message” made sexy? Our guest is former specialist doctor and author of the book “Bøssepesten” (“The Gay Plague”) Jan Fouchard who, with a perspective from the very core of the AIDS crisis, tells us about what happened when HIV came to Denmark.
Psychopathia Sexualis is a podcast created for the exhibition of the same name at O—Overgaden (13 August – 10 October 2021) and is produced by Jan Høgh Stricker and Kasper Vang from The Lake Radio. Host: Mathias Kryger.
- PublicationsHvad kan virussen lære os?
This new Danish translation of Paul B. Preciados text Learning from the Virus, translated by Aleatorik, was initiated by O—Overgaden and the exhibition project Psychopathia Sexualis. The text draws lines of connection between AIDS, biopolitics, and the COVID-19 crisis.