Gauguin & Polynesia. An elusive paradise

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, (Copenhagen, Denmark) shows more than 50 of Gauguin's famous motifs from Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands -many of them being exhibited in Denmark for the first time.

Gauguin & Polynesia. An elusive paradise is an exhibition that also shows the art and cultures of Polynesia, presented independently and comprehensively with around 60 artefacts from the islands, which inspired Gauguin: cult statues, jewellery (some of it made from human hair and bones) weapons as well as tattoo patterns -from the period 1800 until Gauguin's death in 1903. Visitors will be able to see objects and ornaments he made direct use of in his painting, but, in particular one will gain an insight into mores and customs in the French colony at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The exhibition pursues the artist's idea of the primitive, from his time in Copenhagen and Brittany on to the Tahiti period, which has made him famous.

Gauguin called himself 'Oviri' -the savage. He invented and refined his own form of primitive art, equal parts abstraction and observation of nature. The exhibition illustrates his intense search for a new way of telling stories in art about the human being, the erotic and the mysteries of life.

Date: until January 31.
Location: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Dantes Plads 7. 1556 Copenhagen. Denmark.
Opening hours: from Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 5pm.