FREDERIK NÆBLERØD

Gammel Holtegaard proudly announces the opening of Danish artist Frederik Næblerød’s solo exhibition Masquerade. Turning the baroque galleries into a stage for his expressive universe Næblerød interweaves the culture and dreams of the absolute monarchy of the past with the present. 

The solo exhibition Masquerade represents a new departure in Frederik Næblerød’s art, which has previously focussed on painting and sculpture. Here at Gammel Holtegaard the artist presents a site-specific installation combining elements of the past and present with paintings and ceramics in tableaux with mannequins, costumes and historical props.

The exhibition represents Næblerød’s take on life as it was at Gammel Holtegaard in the mid-18^th century when it was created, a free artistic interpretation in which the spirit and atmosphere of the place are embedded in a burlesque artistic universe populated by strange creatures.

It is the dreams of power and glory secreted at Gammel Holtegaard Næblerød has taken as inspiration for his tableaux in Masquerade, following in the satirical footsteps of artists such as Honorée Daumier, James Ensor and Asger Jorn. He delves into the history of Gammel Holtegaard’s creator Lauritz de Thurah, a Danish baroque architect who had risen to the top of the social hierarchy, a position he marked by modelling his country house on the palace of the Sun King Louis XIV in Versailles.

Næblerød has created a fictional universe with references to de Thurah, the decadence of French court culture at Versailles, and the masquerade balls of the baroque and their inversion of norms, roles, and hierarchies. The exhibition takes the form of an opulent residence with monstrous forces lurking just beneath the surface – where order and stringency topple on the verge of chaos. Jesters on the prowl, death waiting in the wings, the merging of dream and reality.

BIO – FREDERIK NÆBLERØD
Frederik Næblerød (b. 1988) lives and works in Copenhagen. He graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2018 and is represented in collections including the New Carlsberg Foundation, the Danish Arts Foundation, Vejle Art Museum, Horsens Art Museum and the Kastrupgård Collection. He has previously exhibited at Gammel Holtegaard in the group ceramics show COOL CLAY in 2020, and his works have been shown internationally at Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles, NADA Art Fair, Canada Gallery in New York and Haverkampf Gallery i Berlin.