Analysis by Mikkel Bogh

transitstation is an organisation at the centre of which can be found an exhibition-as-event. As indicated by the name, a slight paradox, or game with words, is immanent in the institution; transitstation has evolved over the years. The word transit is all about movement, thoroughfare, travel; the word station is all about stops, fixed platforms, meeting places. transitstation can be termed as a structure in motion.

It is an institution in which the event, the change, the rootlessness and restlessness, the network, and the expansion is inherent, but at the same time an institution established the basis of a coherent framework for meetings and gatherings between artists, performative people, materials, images and voices.

In 2010 Copenhagen, and more specifically, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Visual Arts at Charlottenborg Castle, is the setting for transitstation. The Royal Danish Academy of Arts acts as the host and local station for transitststation, albeit in a manner quite different from that of theatre in the world of performing arts, which host a guest performance for it and then go out on tour. The point of transitstation is quite different. transitstation already consists of a large group of international artists, affiliated to varying degrees. The artists bring ideas, experiences, perspectives, and energy to every new exhibition event without predetermined result or programme. These people have become involved with the project, as it has set up camp in European capitals such as London, Berlin and Edinburgh. In Copenhagen the network is currently expanding and transforming. New local forces are joining the project; students and professional artists from many different genres will contribute with their work and efforts to the intense two-day-long melting pot of art, action and performance.

Together with the audience, and the possibilities provided locally they will create an exhibition of moving, time-based images which during these two days form part of a unique constellation – never the same, and yet an unmistakeable product of transitstation.

The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts warmly welcomes transitstation to our old, historical ceremonial hall, the Festsalen, albeit perhaps too historical for the current purpose thus reactionary nevertheless. It is inherent in the nature of transitstation to adapt to local settings. However this year the challenge may prove to be even greater. The ceremonial hall of The Royal Danish Academy is situated right at the heart of a listed building from the 1670s, and has previously served as a banqueting hall, theatre and opera venue. Over the past 250 years it has been – with varying degrees of success, but in its own accommodating fashion – the setting for professional and festive occasions alike; prize awards, exhibitions, Royal visits, concerts with classical and experimental music, international conferences, and protest meetings. Due to the considerable height of the ceiling and the neo-classicist exterior, complete with a Parthenon frieze and coffered ceiling, it might appear as a dance partner who is a little stiff-legged, and weighed down by convention and the old traditions of the Academy. The hall thus gives the impression of being formed by artistic ideals from times gone by – when ideas of art as a room in motion and audience participation had not come into existence yet. However as with other exhibition events, transitstation will complete this setting with all the history involved. Viewed from a far-reaching historical perspective, the spaciousness and events have been the distinctive marks of the hall, just as performative art forms and events have played an important role here from the beginning. Music, theatre, lectures, meetings, conferences, and graduation ceremonies refer to situations, which each in their own way change over time, include physical performers and have a particular relation to the audience.

With the inclusion of scaffolding, transitstation’s visual and spatial hallmark will underline the fact that with this event it is a question of something alien, something from without never intended for this place – for nowhere in fact – because it both exists as a process and is under construction. For that reason, it is bound to become a collision in which histories meet and views on art are negotiated.

If truth were told, the Schools of Visual Arts have not exactly been an educational institution of outstanding importance when it comes to the field of performance. Performance art has been something that the students have had to study on their own, and only rarely with the aid of dedicated and focussed teaching resources. A rapid development within this field, however, is gradually changing the situation – and transitstation is yet another indication of this development. An increasing number of artists, and still more students at the art academies, work with games, film, languages, theatricality, live situations, roles and identities, processes in time and space, sound and experimental music. Perhaps this is in recognition of the fact that images obtain a different dimension of meaning when they are moving, perhaps because the performative aspect opens up new ways of meeting the viewer and different ways of shaping consciousness. Whatever the case may be, it is a remarkable fact that the time dimension – as performance space and limitation – attracts so much interest today. We live for better or for worse, in an age concerned with time-limited projects – a condition which certainly should be examined. This must be reflected in the cooperation in which we involve ourselves at the Schools of Visual Arts, in visiting lecturers we engage and in the projects we initiate and support.

On behalf of the Schools of Visual Arts, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to transitstation’s driving force, the artist Dagmar Glausnitzer-Smith and her team, for an inspiring and engaging collaboration. Thanks to her enthusiasm and ingenuity, a new concept of the live exhibition and event has been introduced, which will no doubt leave its imprint on the local art scene. Copenhagen is no more than a station on the ‘rail’ way for this project. But new passengers will board the train, and we are among them. We look forward to travelling further together.

— Mikkel Bogh, Former Rector Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, The Schools of Visual Arts
Danish text translated by Annemette Fogh