Art News

FOS Transforms Sculpture Street Space at the National Gallery of Denmark

DENMARK.- Nylon sails reaching a height of 20m suspended between floor and ceiling, a labyrinthine sequence of tents inhabited by curious objects and machines and a steep hill with a factory producing arrowheads and axe heads out of soap. The Danish artist FOS, who is also featured at the Venice Biennial at the moment, has claimed the Sculpture Street at the National Gallery of Denmark for his own, transforming the 2,000m2 space into an enormous, interactive, and intriguing total installation with the aid of the Austrian/Italian artists’ duo Krüger & Pardeller. The words are those of FOS (Thomas Poulsen, b. 1971) and sum up his fundamental view of how the visual arts are distinct from other types of art and expression. Whereas design folds itself up around its function and aesthetic, art is a distinctive space with wide-ranging potential. Art is anything but a closed-off reservation. FOS’ own works fuse sculpture, design, and