Collection in Action – Skovgaard Museet Viborg

Søren Dahlgaard – Collection in Action, Skovgaard Museet, Viborg, Denmark, 2023.

Artist and Ph.D. Søren Dahlgaard (b. 1973) engages in a dialogue with the Skovgaard Museum’s art collection.

When the museum’s collection meets Dahlgaard’s artworks, new stories emerge and opinions that connect past and present – ​​like old playmates who meet again after many years of separation. The historical art from the collection is part of new dialogues with contemporary art: about the cosy and uncanny, power and powerlessness, the nationalist and our view of the landscape and nature.

The Golden Age painting has inspired Søren Dahlgaard to rethink how one traditionally paints landscapes and portraits. Dahlgaard uses play and participation as central elements in creating the artwork. In the exhibition, you can experience this process in the works by participating in The Garden Gnome painting and various workshops during the exhibition period.

With COLLECTION IN ACTION, we hope to challenge, surprise and give our guests a new view of our art collection and communication that we can integrate into a future Skovgaard Museum in Viborg’s Cathedral Quarter.

A catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition.

COLLECTION IN ACTION is realised in collaboration with Bikubenfonden and with support from The Danish Arts Council.



Viborg Friskole students practice carrying the inflatable island before the Island Parade.

The Island Parade kicks off in Viborg on the opening day of the Collection in Action exhibition.
The Island Parade ends at the Skovgaard Museet, and all the students enter the exhibition.
A landscape of islands spills out of the museum of Golden Age landscape paintings.
Inside the museum, the inflatable island poses in front of a P. C. Skovgaard painting and a dialogue has begun between art from the 19th and 21st centuries.
The museum director Christian Kortegaard Madsen, and his son Adam play with the island.
Viborg Gymnasium high school participates in a croquis still-life class where the inflatable island poses in the exhibition.
During the final pose some students sit on the beach.
The Gnome Painting Technique is installed in the main gallery space – a collaborative work by Tully Moore and Søren Dahlgaard, completed by the students.
A young school student operates the long paintbrush stick assisted by the live video feed on the screen.



In this video, artist Søren Dahlgaard and museum director and curator Christian Kortegaard Madsen present the exhibition Collection in Action, which was shown from the 16th of September 2023 to the 14th of January 2024 at Skovgaard Museet, Viborg, Denmark.

The conversation is in Danish.