OUT OF THE DARK

Welcome to a world of drama and drapery, theater and the Thirty Years’ War, sensuality and intense emotions! For the first time ever, SMK is presenting a major exhibition on Baroque art, in collaboration with Concerto Copenhagen.

"Out of the Darkness" is a sensory exhibition in which the SMK invites you on a journey back to 17th-century Europe. The exhibition brings you up close to the artists and music of the Baroque era. Concerto Copenhagen helps set the mood as the story unfolds about a time marked by alchemy, faith and superstition, witch hunts, war, capitalism, and climate challenges.

The exhibition draws on the SMK’s extensive collection of European paintings and works on paper from the 17th century. Many of the artworks have been brought out of the museum’s storage and retrieved from Danish castles, and can now be seen for the first time in over 100 years!

SMK sheds new light on a vibrant and turbulent period that may have more in common with our own time than MON think! Subdued music from two albums by Concerto Copenhagen—“Armonico Tributo” and “Ich bin die Auferstehung”—sets the mood in some of the exhibition rooms.

During the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque, such fundamental changes took place in Western European music that we are, so to speak, still living with the consequences. These changes stemmed from the same new movements and ideas that underpinned painting, incorporating concepts such as rhetoric and pathos.

"Out of the Darkness" will be celebrated with an exhibition opening at SMK Friday on May 26, featuring, among other things, Concerto Copenhagen’s “Bubbling Baroque” and a concert!