Temporary exhibition: September 1 – November 25, 2012

On exhibit will be 70 paintings, borrowed from various museums, e.g. the National Gallery of Denmark, KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, as well as from private owners. The selection will be made based on themes and will create a dialogue between Poul Anker Bech (1942-2009) and Niels Lergaard (1893-1982). Poul Anker Bech himself made a point of being inspired by Lergaard – an inspiration that goes much further than suggested by their brief meeting in 1966 as student and professor at The Jutland Art Academy. Their intellectual fellowship is particularly explicit in the paintings of the sea view with the high horizon – often lined by houses, people and landscapes. But it is seen also in the endeavours to find an artistic idiom for the existence of modern man and man's basic conditions.

The exhibition is shown at the Vendsyssel Museum of Art before reaching the Workers' Museum and then the Bornholm Museum of Art. The original concept was developed in 2008 in cooperation with Poul Anker Bech and the exhibition was planned to open on the occasion of his 70 years birthday in April 2012. The painter unfortunately passed away before the exhibition was implemented. Vendsyssel Museum of Art proceeded with the concept and filled his wish that the exhibition should be shown around the country.

Bornholm being the part of Denmark that particularly inspired Niels Lergaard, it was only natural to organise the exhibition in cooperation with the Bornholm Museum of Art. The art and works of Poul Anker Bech fall within the focus area of the Workers' Museum, the life and challenges of man in a modern welfare society.

Temporary Exhibition: February 11 – May 28, 2012
 
“The poster is waging war from every other street corner in the industrial city", Social Democrat Julius Bomholt wrote in 1932. The war metaphor reflects the massive presence of political posters in the public or private sphere during the last 100 years. From walls and lampposts posters have served as weapons in the ongoing political and social struggles.

More than 12,000 of these posters from Denmark and abroad are part of the collections of the Workers' Museum & the Labour Movement's Library and Archives (ABA). It's a wonderful mix of crazy, crooked, ugly and beautiful, funny and serious posters that would certainly not have been saved, had we not conducted an active collection from the many political parties and movements that emerged with the labor movement. The posters should not be judged on the basis of their artistic value, but for their clout and ability to touch people and to spread the word.
 
A selection from this unique collection now forms the basis of a different and sensuous poster exhibition at the Workers' Museum. Here an almost endless variety of themes are presented: Demonstrations, labour disputes and strikes - peace and disarmament - climate and environment - children, young and old - the EU and NATO – May Day and international solidarity - Christiania and Youth - Poul Schlüter, Thorvald Stauning and Chairman Mao - naked, dead, revolutionaries, women, cyclists, and much more.

The many themes demonstrate the importance of the posters in the political debate through the 20th century as a means of information, promotion and announcement of campaigns, events as well as statements of political views.
 
In the exhibition you can also meet those who fight for a spot on the wall to put the posters, you can watch movies about some of the many spectacular actions that the posters are part of and you can read stories by some of the many poster-makers who have turned the poster into that very vibrant and important means of communication that it has been through 100 years.
 
The exhibition also includes documents, photographs and objects that serve to put the posters in their original context.
 
We hope that the exhibition will contribute to reflections on how the political debate has developed, and that when leaving the museum you will see the city with new eyes. That you will note the small message on a sticker on a lamppost. Note the poster mounted on a cabinet or garbage can announcing a demonstration. Note that you are part of a world where the political struggle is alive - also as a call from the wall!
 
And a book
 
The exhibition catalogue published by the Workers' Museum & the Labour Movement's Library and Archives contains contributions by poster artists Thomas Kruse (Røde Mor) and Mikael Witte, and a very personal account by one of the activists from 'Ungdomshuset', who describes the great power that organized  'poster-mounters' have over the urban spaces. Librarian at ABA, Dorte Ellesøe Hansen tells about the establishment of the extensive collection. Curator Margit Bech Larsen describes the historical development of the political posters in an article on posters from HK (The Union of Commercial and Clerical Employees in Denmark).  And communication researcher Orla Vigsø writes about the development of the election poster during the last 100 years.
 
The exhibition A Call from the Wall - Political Posters Through 100 Years can be seen February 11 to May 28, 2012.

27 January - 30 July 2011

The forthcoming special exhibition at The Workers’ Museum A taste of Europe - Eastern Europeans Working in Danish Agriculture samples European food and takes the temperature of the labour market in which this food is produced.

Taking pigs as our point of departure we examine both culinary culture and food production. Why do we eat the way we do? Who are those thousands of workers from Eastern Europe who produce our pigs?

By drawing a historical parallel to the large immigration waves into agriculture around 1900, the exhibition takes up a more general discussion of some major present-day political issues in the Danish labour market and for the welfare state – issues that will be examined in further detail in lectures and workshops.

27 August – 29 December 2011

In the autumn of 2011, John Kørner will fill the special exhibition rooms of the Workers’ Museum with graphics and entirely new paintings.

The point of departure for these images is the foreign women working as prostitutes in Denmark. The Exhibition ‘Women for Sale’ will thus be a topical comment – from the artist’s perspective – on the problem of trafficking in women.

All the works are being shown for the first time, and the paintings will arrive directly from the artist’s studio.