SUPERFLEX's 'One Two Three Swing!' at the EU Parliament, Brussels →

SUPLERFLEX
July 3 - December 1, 2025 | Esplanade Solidarność, European Union Parliament, Brussels

Photographer: Alexis HAULOT. Copyright: © European Union 2025 - Source : EP

SUPERFLEX’s new installation of One Two Three Swing! is presented by The Office of the Commissioner for Europe and International Organisations of the Brussels-Capital Region (CEOI) and its partners as a call to unity and dialogue in a time of conflict and polarization.

As Denmark assumes the Presidency of the Council of the European Union this July, a powerful new artwork by the internationally acclaimed artist collective SUPERFLEX will be unveiled in front of the European Parliament in Brussels. Stemming from a Memorandum of Understanding between the CEOI and the European Parliament, the installation is the result of a curatorial collaboration between The Artists’ Parliament, Creator Projects, and SUPERFLEX which will transform the Esplanade Solidarność into an engaging space for reflection, connection, and collective action. Designed as both a public installation and a symbolic intervention, the artwork aims to spark awareness, provoke dialogue, and reawaken a shared sense of responsibility.

One Two Three Swing is part of The Artists’ Parliament’s program, a public space exhibition project curated by Joël Benzakin and Jeanne Mouffe to mark the rotating presidencies of the Council of the European Union. The chosen European contemporary artists represent their country with an exhibition on the Esplanade Solidarność in front of the European Parliament and following the calendar of the rotating presidencies.

One Two Three Swing! is co-curated by Simon Friese, director of Creator Projects. Creator Projects aims to foster impactful art projects that enrich public space. Based in Denmark and working globally, Creator Projects partners with visionary artists, cities, and institutions to realize bold, thought-provoking works in public environments.

Supported by The Jamil Collection; Albarrán Bourdais; Family Wandt, Château de Fontaine; MTAB; and a private supporter

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The Art Collective Superflex Wants to Change the World and Thinks You Can Too →

Superflex | The New York Times

Superflex’s Superbrick Factory is a work space in which “Superbricks” are produced and used to construct sculptures in the space. Superbricks are pink, curved bricks made from unfired clay that are constructed to avoid the right angles and straight lines of human architecture. Credit": Mathias Lassen/Courtesy of Museum Jorn

by Laura Rysman

If humans have any chance of saving themselves and life as we know it, we need to see the world in a whole new way — from the point of view of other species.

It’s a theory championed by the Copenhagen art collective Superflex, which builds on the philosophy that art and artists can and should play a role in the future of the world. […] That kind of thinking has placed Superflex among the innovative artists addressing the world’s ills today. Key to their philosophy and others like them is the belief that people should consider the impact on other species and work not only with fellow artists, architects and other experts, but also with communities to address those ills.

“We believe that today art is, and should be, at the forefront of making infrastructure at every possible level,” said Bjornstjerne Christiansen, one of the founders of Superflex, speaking on a panel titled “Worlds Imagined: Biodiversity and Tech” at the Art for Tomorrow conference in Milan last week. “It’s in the actual landscape-making where art has a crucial role to play.”

Read more here.

Biennale Arte 2024 | Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere →

SUPERFLEX | La Biennale di Venezia

The 60th International Art Exhibition, titled Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, will open to the public from Saturday April 20 to Sunday November 24, 2024, at the Giardini and the Arsenale; it will be curated by Adriano Pedrosa and organised by La Biennale di Venezia. The pre-opening will take place on April 17, 18 and 19; the awards ceremony and inauguration will be held on 20 April 2024.

Since 2021, La Biennale di Venezia launched a plan to reconsider all of its activities in light of recognized and consolidated principles of environmental sustainability. For the year 2024, the goal is to extend the achievement of “carbon neutrality” certification, which was obtained in 2023 for La Biennale’s scheduled activities: the 80th Venice International Film Festival, the Theatre, Music and Dance Festivals and, in particular, the 18th International Architecture Exhibition which was the first major Exhibition in this discipline to test in the field a tangible process for achieving carbon neutrality – while furthermore itself reflecting upon the themes of decolonisation and decarbonisation.

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SUPERFLEX - One Two Three Swing! now on view at the Korean DMZ

SUPERFLEX

The swings act as a human-powered pendulum, converting potential energy into shared movement. Swings are ordinarily meant for individual use, but in this work each swing can seat three people. Those on the swing must together utilise the force of gravity, building up to the instant where falling becomes flying and everyone moves together. In this playful moment, the energy of collective movement is released.

One Two Three Swing! invites the audience to explore the power of play and the possibilities of collaboration – possibilities that are realised when we swing into motion together. The shared experience offered by the work may trigger reflections on broader issues such as democracy, collective action and social connectivity. In this sense, SUPERFLEX’s swings are more than just an opportunity for play, they are an experiment in activating collective energy – energy that can perhaps be channeled to change the course of the planet and our path as a society.

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‘there are different rules down there’ →

Superflex | Wallpaper Magazine

Image from Superflex's Super Reef project, a partnership with WWF Verdensnaturfonden which will restore a minimum of 55 square kilometers of lost reefs in the Danish ocean. (Image credit: Superflex)

By Alice Godwin

‘In many ways, the sea is the global unconscious,’ says Rasmus Nielsen, who founded Danish artist collective Superflex alongside Bjørnstjerne Christiansen and Jakob Fenger. ‘It’s almost like falling asleep, where you break through this surface. There are different rules down there.’ 

Superflex, known for its politically charged projects described as ‘tools for action’, has long been interested in the state of our seas. As Nielsen notes: ‘a healthy ocean is good for all of us’. Through the years, Superflex has experimented with different watery facets – creating a drive-through cinema in the Coachella Valley for Desert X using a coral-like material with projected footage of fish (Dive-In, 2019), a video of a deep-sea organism known as a siphonophore across the façade of the United Nations Headquarters in New York (Vertical Migration, 2021) and even interviews with marine life (What do you dream of?, 2018).

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SUPERFLEX Upcoming Exhibitions

SUPERFLEX Infomail

Aquaria – Or the Illusion of a Boxed Sea, installation view. maat – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Lisbon), 2021. Courtesy of EDP Foundation. Photography by Francisco Nogueira

Aquaria – Or the Illusion of a Boxed Sea, installation view. maat – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Lisbon), 2021. Courtesy of EDP Foundation. Photography by Francisco Nogueira

Aquaria – Or the Illusion of a Boxed Sea
A selection of Pink Elements is being exhibited at MAAT in Lisbon as part of the exhibition Aquaria – Or the Illusion of a Boxed Sea. Pink Elements consists of varying configurations of pink, coral-friendly bricks that stand as future-ruins turned fish metropolis. The bricks are materially aligned with the needs of underwater creatures, their pink color scientifically known to propagate coral polyp growth.
Aquaria examines how the ocean has washed up inside our cities, homes, and cultural institutions, and questions how we have interiorised the notion of an ocean kingdom. 
Pink Elements are based onthe Deep Sea Minding research, supported by TBA21–Academy.

Works exhibited:  Pink Element no. 1/Revolving Corner, Pink Element no. 4/Penthouse, Pink Element no. 7/Corner District and Vertical Migration
Location: Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon
Closing date: 6 September 2021
For more information visit https://www.maat.pt/en

 
Sharity - teilen, tauschen, verzichten
Alle Daten Dem Volke is showing at the Kunst(Zeug)Haus in Rapperswil-Jona as part of the exhibition Sharity – teilen, tauschen, verzichten. The work points to the asymmetry in the current access to data and to the right of all people to information and distribution of power, on which democracy depends. 
The exhibition deals with sharing, an archetypal form of our existence that has advanced to become a lifestyle. It questions the reasons why and what we share and how our society is changing as a result of this.

Work exhibited: Alle Daten Dem Volke    
Location: Kunst(Zeug)Haus, Rapperswil-Jona
Closing date: 16 May 2021
For more information visit : https://www.kunstzeughaus.ch


Every End Is A New Beginning / Gravmonumenter
For the exhibition Gravmonumenter at Kunsthal Aarhus, we made a proposal for an interspecies burial monument that challenges standardized perceptions of post-living arrangements. The organically shaped monument defines the systematic grid in cemeteries by moving across several graves. By taking a shape that is neither end nor beginning, it becomes a continuously growing sculptural infrastructure that manifests our interspecies relations.
Gravmonumenter is a catalog of inspiration for how we, as citizens and society, can incorporate contemporary art on several levels - even when death occurs.

Location: Aarhus Kunsthal, Aarhus
Closing date: 9 May 2021
For more information visit: https://www.kunsthalaarhus.dk


One Two Three Swing! / Real DMZ Project
One Two Three Swing! at Dora Observatory in South Korea went online with the Virtual Real DMZ Project exhibition. One Two Three Swing! is an installation of three interconnected swings affixed to an orange steel line, extending beyond the gallery walls and stretching into the landscape, and potentially beyond into the wider world. 
The virtual exhibition shows three-dimensional renderings of works by internationally acclaimed artists in the setting of a virtual demilitarised zone that is replete with numerous dreams yet to be achieved. Tune into YouTube for a virtual exploration of the Real DMZ Project https://youtu.be/DKolRBF19Mc

Work exhibited: One Two Three Swing!
Location: Dora Observatory, South Korea
Closing date: 23 May 2021

esrawe studio and SUPERFLEX unveil vibrant ARCA warehouse in miami →

SUPERFLEX | designboom | by Kat Barandy

Image: César Béjar

Image: César Béjar

wrapped in a colorful facade by SUPERFLEX, stone manufacturer ARCA presents a design warehouse in wynwood, miami, with a gallery-like experience by esrawe studio. crossing through the vibrant exterior art piece, visitors enter a showroom collection of natural and technological materials and cultural activations. commissioned to imagine the arca’s new façade is danish artist group SUPERFLEX, three artists known for intersecting art, science, and activism. the facade, entitled ‘like a force of nature,’ is comprised of arca’s ceramic tiles designed by hector esrawe.

esrawe studio and SUPERFLEX work together to generate a facade installation that vibrantly expresses fibonacci sequence patterning along the ARCA miami warehouse. following a color palette inspired by the tones of banknotes, the work of art underlines the overwhelming experience of the world’s current economic systems as natural as volcanoes or tsunamis, almost like a force of nature. hector esrawe comments: ‘unlike its colorful façade, the interior is designed as a neutral space to shift the focus onto the material collections. ARCA wynwood is presented as a museum-grade experience where the materials are showcased as unique works of nature, creating an opportunity for visitors to have an interactive, sensory experience with ARCA’s products.’

ARCA’s miami warehouse is conceptually designed by esrawe studio and SUPERFLEX to shift away from traditional retail space. instead, the project promotes learning, stimulates dialogue and knowledge, and offers an understanding of why and how architecture, design, art, and culture are generated worldwide. this is accomplished with the dual-purpose design of showcasing the materials for experience and ease of purchase.

on the ground floor of ARCA’s miami showroom, visitors are presented with a visual experience. videos of the quarries arca sources for its stone, processes it maintains and other sources of inspiration or creation of materials is projected at reception. in the double-height stone gallery, a curated display of massive slabs of marble sourced from around the world are presented. each slab on display is available for purchase, where an indoor crane will reach down and help the customer select the exact piece. the second floor offers a journey through the evolution of materials, from natural wood to manufactured wood, ceramics, tile and porcelain, with a room dedicated to each.

Swinging times in the DMZ

Superflex | The Korea Herald | By Shim Woo-hyun

Superflex installation that filled the Turbine Hall in London's Tate Modern finds a new location a long way from home.

You can ride on a swing in the Demilitarized Zone along the border between the two Koreas, and it’s even a three-seater. 

Danish artist group Superflex’s two-swing set from their 2017 large-scale installation “One Two Three Swing!” has been installed at Dora observatory situated at the northernmost point of the DMZ, in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. 

Tourists and soldiers visiting Dora observatory were swinging under blue-clear sky on Tuesday. Taking pictures of them was Jakob Fenger, who founded Superflex along with Rasmus Nielsen and Bjornstjerne Christiansen in 1993. 

“It’s a magical moment (to seeing the work being installed at the site),” Fenger said during a press conference held on Tuesday at Dora observatory in the DMZ, which overlooks various locations in North Korea, including the downtown of Gaeseong, Songaksan on the backdrop, Kim Il-Sung Statue, cooperation farms and so on. 

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MMCA exhibition ‘Vertiginous Data’ questions neutrality of tech

SUPERFLEX | The Korea Herald | By Shim Woo-hyun

SUPERFLEX_install_korea.jpg

Not many artworks on show at museums have price tags attached to them, but Rachel Ara’s installation work does. The large tech installation, a mass of devices and black cables, updates in real time its value on a screen in red neon numbers.

This seemingly “overcalculated and overcomplicated” tech-sculpture by Ara, titled “This Much I’m Worth,” is part of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s latest exhibition.

Showcasing experimental works by 10 artists and artist groups, “Vertiginous Data” at the MMCA attempts to suggest that seemingly objective data and technology are not neutral as they bring about various social, economic and ethical issues.

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Bjarke Ingels’s New Galeries Lafayette Fuses Historic and Contemporary Styles in Paris

SUPERFLEX | Architecture Digest | By Nadja Sayej

The famous department store has received a modernist revamp

Detail Après Vou Low Res.jpg

Though it was once a bank, a stately Art Deco building on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, in Paris, has been transformed into a sleek, modern shopping mecca designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels. The new Galeries Lafayette Champs-Elysées, which opened this past weekend, is a sprawling 70,000-square-foot space made of marble, glass, and steel.

In a statement, Ingels called the project a “pragmatic utopia,” mixing minimalist function with extravagant beauty. The rose-hued marble in the interior fits in well with the romantic City of Light and is peppered with gold-lined touches that are spread throughout the space’s four floors.

What exactly is a “pragmatic utopia?” According to Ingels, it’s a type of architecture that steers clear of boring white boxes. It also avoids what he calls “the naive utopian ideas of digital formalism.” Here, he fuses convention with concept, tapping into his personal motto: “Yes is more.”

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Mixing Art, Activism and Science. And Some Tropical Fish.

Superflex | New York Times | By Lisa Abend

Superflex-2-Lance-Gerber-3000px-1024x768.jpg

COPENHAGEN — Somewhere in the desert outside Palm Springs, Calif. a new drive-in movie theater is opening. It’s a simple structure, not much more than a screen mounted on a few bubblegum-color pillars, with no concession stand and very limited programming. In fact, the cinema shows only one film, and that film is about fish.

Commissioned for the Desert X exhibition that opens Feb. 9 and runs through April 21 at various sites in the Coachella Valley, the theater — called “Dive In” — is an installation by the Danish artist collective Superflex and forms part of their larger project “Deep Sea Minding.”

“Dive In” responds to the prospect of rising sea levels by imagining a future in which coastal cities are submerged, and their inhabitants are fish. Blending art, science, and activism, it is a sly meditation on climate change, as well as an excellent primer on how Superflex, founded in 1993, has managed to remain relevant, even crucial, through 25 years.

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SUPERFLEX: We Are All In The Same Boat

The Museum of Art and Design at Miami Dade College

15 November 2018 - 21 April 2019

The first museum survey of the critically acclaimed Danish collective SUPERFLEX in the United States, this exhibition focuses on the group’s humorous and playfully subversive installations and films, which address the economy, financial crisis, corruption, migration, and the possible consequences of global warming. The exhibition’s title envisions passengers together in a ship at sea, and a set of shared risks that may put them in danger. Our own collective danger implies a collective responsibility and a need to collaborate so that our ship does not capsize.

Increasingly during the last two decades, global warming and climate change have been discussed and debated, and the consequences of human impact, interference, and possible triggering of the twenty-first century’s climate changes have recently echoed within the art world in a more activist way. Art has always responded to issues in the real world, and SUPERFLEX has been at the forefront of artists who grapple with many of these pressing subjects. SUPERFLEX was founded by Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger, and Rasmus Nielsen in 1993, and since then the three artists have gained international recognition for their DIY and activist approaches.

We Are All in the Same Boat includes a group of videos, sculptures, and installations selected for their relevance to the history, present, and future of the City of Miami. The works reflect upon the position of Miami from the perspectives of art, finance, climate, and a fictional, if plausible, future. The topics of water, migration, refugees, and the economy inevitably drive the conception of the exhibition. We Are All in the Same Boat includes the American debut of a number of the works in the show, several of which have been newly reimagined for our city.

SUPERFLEX is known for its interest in unifying urban spaces and commenting on society through art. The artists describe their practice as providing “tools” that affect or influence a social or economic situation. The group often roots its projects in their particular local contexts and outside of traditional art contexts, collaborating with designers, engineers, businesses, and marketers on projects that have the potential for social or economic change. The projects remain difficult to pigeonhole, yet innovative in their approaches to current issues.

The members of SUPERFLEX have used their position as artists to pose questions of political, economic, and environmental behavior and responsibility. In the words of the exhibition’s curator, SUPERFLEX’s “works are meant to create political awareness, generate discussions, and help us think and act.”

Organized by MOAD, SUPERFLEX: We Are All in the Same Boat is curated by Jacob Fabricius, Artistic Director of Kunsthal Aarhus. Support for SUPERFLEX: We Are All in the Same Boat is provided by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, this.nordic, Funding Arts Network, the Danish Arts Foundation, and the Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs.

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SUPERFLEX: Artist Talk for European Union Mayotte at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

SUPERFLEX: European Union Mayotte, installation view, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, September 7–December 30, 2018. Photo: Dusty Kessler.

SUPERFLEX: European Union Mayotte, installation view, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, September 7–December 30, 2018. Photo: Dusty Kessler.

SUPERFLEX

Artist Talk for European Union Mayotte

Thursday October 25, 2018 at 6:30pm

Exhibition On View Until December 30, 2018

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

3750 Washington Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63108

Bjørnstjerne Christiansen—one of three members of the Danish art collective SUPERFLEX—discusses the group’s multidimensional practice and the video installation European Union Mayotte with CAM Chief Curator Wassan Al-Khudhairi.

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SUPERFLEX: Western Rampart at Køge Station for TRANSIT/KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces

PHOTO: For SUPERFLEX in the making of Western Rampart ©KØS Museum for kunst i det offentlige rum

PHOTO: For SUPERFLEX in the making of Western Rampart ©KØS Museum for kunst i det offentlige rum

SUPERFLEX

Western Rampart (film, Køge Station Bridge, 2018)

September 13 - November 13, 2018

Køge Station

4600 Køge, Denmark

The artist collective SUPERFLEX has produced a brand-new film for the TRANSIT. Addressing the largest border construction in Danish history, Western Rampart is based on the Western Rampart of Copenhagen as a historical construct. The rampart was part of Copenhagen’s inland fortifications, designed to protect the capital of Denmark against invading forces. It was built west of Copenhagen in 1888-92, stretching all the way from Køge Bay in the south to Utterslev Marsh in the north. With its wide-ranging topography, the rampart crosses several present-day borders between the city councils in the region west of Copenhagen, including Copenhagen itself, Brøndby, Rødovre and Hvidovre. The work is exhibited at Køge Station, the terminal of the E line that cuts through this exact area.

As SUPERFLEX show in the film, the Western Rampart is not only of interest from a historical perspective. It is also linked to a series of contemporary issues, such as the ongoing attempts to define, delineate and maintain borders. Western Rampart’s focus on the negotiation of borders or boundaries is also present in the work itself with its intersection of fact and fiction and its mix of documentary footage with more visually experimental and associative sequences. SUPERFLEX have used drones to produce the film, exploring – like several other works in the exhibition – mobile methods, i.e. methods used to investigate phenomena in flux that are themselves on the move. The members of SUPERFLEX – Jakob Fenger (b. 1968), Bjørnstjerne Christiansen (b. 1969) and Rasmus Nielsen (b. 1969) ­– were born in Roskilde, Copenhagen and Jelling, Denmark, respectively. They live and work in Copenhagen.

TRANSIT is a major research-based exhibition project produced by KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces. TRANSIT explores transit sites – some of today’s most controversial and crowded public spaces – and the many people who pass through them. Experience art at stations, on the E line, and in an international exhibition at KØS.

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SUPERFLEX: European Union Mayotte at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

SUPERFLEX, European Union Mayotte (still), 2016. Two-channel video installation (color, sound), 9:42 minutes, 3:54 minutes. Courtesy the artist.

SUPERFLEX, European Union Mayotte (still), 2016. Two-channel video installation (color, sound), 9:42 minutes, 3:54 minutes. Courtesy the artist.

SUPERFLEX

European Union Mayotte

September 7 - December 30, 2018

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

3750 Washington Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63108

Founded in 1993 by Danish artists Jakob Fenger, Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, and Rasmus Nielsen, the collective SUPERFLEX challenges the role of the artist in contemporary society and explores the nature of globalization and systems of power through a diverse and complex practice. SUPERFLEX describe their works as “tools,” suggesting multiple areas of application and use. At CAM, the SUPERFLEX film installation European Union Mayotte reflects upon migration, the dream of another life, and the front border of the European Union. Mayotte, an island in the Indian Ocean north of Madagascar, is part of the Union of Comoros, one of the four Comoros Islands that were once part of a French Colony. Mayotte has maintained close cultural and political ties to France, and in 2014 was acknowledged as part of the EU, making it the Union’s outermost region.

The installation consists of two projections, one pictures a scene of a single boat in the ocean, sometimes with passengers visible, the other follows the production of a small fiberglass fishing boat on Anjouan, an island situated only 70 kilometers from Mayotte. In these small boats, people from Anjouan and the surrounding islands of the Comoros risk dangerous and illegal journeys in the hope of reaching Mayotte—in effect, the EU—journeys that have caused death by drowning for thousands of people.

SUPERFLEX: European Union Mayotte is organized for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis by Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Chief Curator.

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