Leif Sylvester – Flying Free

An exhibition on Leif Sylvester – the Danish multitalented artist known for his paintings, sculptures, films, music, street theatre, and poetry. For more than five decades, his work has combined humor, rebellion, and a strong sense of social conscience.

In 2025, Leif Sylvester turned 85. For more than five decades, he has expressed his longing for freedom and his social indignation through art and performance. At the Workers Museum we mark the anniversary with the exhibition Leif Sylvester – Flying Free, focusing on both the multitalented artist and the man himself. The title comes from a freedom and workers’ song created by Erik Clausen and Leif Sylvester in 1978.

First and foremost a visual artist

The exhibition conveys Leif Sylvester’s great love of a free life – something, for him, closely tied to art and found in everyday living. It takes us through the different artistic and life phases that characterize Leif Sylvester: from his earliest painting attempts in various styles, created as a young carpenter, to the colorful, imaginative, and expressive works for which he is widely known in Denmark today. The exhibition reveals his wide palette of colors, genres, and creative approaches, reflecting his constant search for new ways to express himself.

We encounter him first and foremost as a visual artist – but also as part of the legendary performance and art duo Clausen & Petersen, as a musician, actor, writer – and as a human being whose values are deeply rooted in the working-class background in which he was born and raised.

Freedom Is Daring

Leif Sylvester’s artistic vision is rooted in a longing for freedom. Even when he returned to visual art in the late 1980s, he sought a practice outside the established and the familiar—one that gave, and continues to give, a voice to those who are not always heard.

“When we performed street theatre, we used to say: ‘Do what you think you cannot do.’ That has always been the red thread in my work. In the past, there was perhaps a belief that an artist could not be both loved by the people and recognized on the mountaintop. I have always felt closer to the people than the mountaintop. It lies deep within me always to side with the weakest,” says Leif Sylvester.

The Workers Museum shares a vision of bringing forward those who are often left in the background of grand narratives—and of telling the stories of the communities and struggles that have shaped modern society.

“Leif Sylvester’s art is carried by sincerity and an untamed urge to express himself. He grew out of the working class and has managed to stay true to his social roots throughout his artistic career. That is why it feels so right that it is here, at the Workers Museum, that his story and his works now unfold,” says Søren Bak-Jensen, Director of the Workers Museum.

The exhibition runs until 2 August 2026.

Exhibition design Eva Wendelboe Kuczynski

Graphic design Fie Reffelt

English translation Camilla Dahl