Frej Volander Himmelstrup
Gruss aus dem Park
Documenta Halle, Kassel · 2025
Armless Meditation, Auguste Rodin hardcover book, Flower petals
Untitled, Oil on wood
The concept of the park has ancient and diverse roots across different cultures worldwide. In Europe, parks began to take on a clearer form in the 16th century — as idyllic, planned landscapes arranged around their privileged owners. They represent a threshold between the natural and the artificial: an illusionistic, staged space of wild nature designed to evoke emotion. Decorative elements of the park are shown, some of which have a mystical and others a purely artificial character and fulfil no practical purpose, but rather represent history in the context of leisure and entertainment.
In this context, the park becomes the shimmering border between reality and imitation, a space of duality — both artificial and ‘natural,’ controlled and free, real and simulated. It imitates nature, the passage of time, and cultural codes, yet remains a man-made construct and a utopia. An idealized space in which nature and time not only exist, but are controlled, composed, and interpreted.
Calculated Spasms
Afgang 25, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen · 2025
Untitled (Companions) Used saxophone reeds
Film stills
Calculated Spasms is a two-channel film installation that unfolds like an impromptu jazz concert, full of acoustic resonances and unexpected turns. In the film, we are led through different sites of happening: a planetarium, an observatory, an office complex and a saxophone repair shop. Through these vignettes, Frej Volander Himmelstrup constructs a nonlinear meditation on rhythm, loss, absurdity and improvisation.
At the film’s core is the artist’s father, a saxophonist with dementia, who can still play despite his cognitive impairment. We see him in the film, playing alongside musicians of sound mind, unable to distinguish the difference between them.
The film oscillates between the loss of memory and the presence of embodied knowledge, offering fragments through sound and image. A voice struggling to form words dissolves into saxophonic breaths, shooting stars become echoes of familiar tunes and the act of gazing upwards becomes the same as looking inwards.
Text by Mariam Elnozahy
Thief
Rundgang 2025, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
Land & History
Untitled (Companions) Used saxophone reeds
Covered up the windows with foil as a collective curatorial gesture
Armless Meditation Auguste Rodin hardcover book, Flower petals
Untitled Oil on wood
Communication sequence Glass mugs, coffee grime, epoxy resin
Crimson Manoeuvre, Cherry Oeuvre
Group exhibition curated by Jane Jin Kaisen, Copenhagen · 2024
Video stills
Frej Volander Himmelstrup (b. 1996, DK)
Email: Frejsel@gmail.com
Upcoming Exhibition
- 2025 – Woonhuis, De Ateliers, Amsterdam (NL)
Selected Exhibitions
- 2025 – "Gruss aus dem Park", Documenta Halle, Kassel (DE)
- 2025 – "Afgang 25" MFA Degree Show, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (DK)
- 2024 – "Land & History", Magma Maria, Frankfurt (DE)
- 2024 – "In der Warteschlange mit Ziegenfüßen", Viel Stoke, Hamburg (DE)
- 2024 – "The bachelors falsity", Udstillingstedet Q (DK)
- 2024 – ... Memory?", Art Hub Copenhagen (DK)
- 2024 – "BEERS 9", Byens Kro (DK)
- 2023 – "FORÅRSUDSTILLINGEN 2023", Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (DK)
- 2023 – "Staff only", Byens Kro (DK)
- 2022 – "Stranger Flowers", Neone, Prague (CZ)
- 2022 – "Das Aauhof-Festival – Quelle Für Kultur Aus Der Quarantäne", Hotel Auhof, Wultendorf (AT)
- 2022 – "GGV (Godt gemt væk)", GGV, Odense (DK)
- 2022 – "Tværinstitiunel gruppeudstilling", Galleri Q, Copenhagen (DK)
- 2022 – "Drafts of Ecology: URD", Fabrika CCI, Moscow (RU)
- 2021 – "Flimmer. Club", flimmer.club
- 2021 – "Children without borders in Afghanistan", Institut for X (DK)
- 2021 – "IT MUST BE MY DREAM", EKA, Tallinn (EST)
- 2021 – "Seven Sages Laid Its Foundations", Kur Space, Vienna (AT)
- 2021 – "Cinema Corona", Mars & Blum, St. Pölten (AT)
- 2021 – "Rundgang 2021", The Funen Art Academy (DK)
- 2021 – "14,8 x 21", Galleri Tom Christoffersen (DK)
- 2020 – "Final Planet Bedroom Exhibition 1", Final-Planet.com
- 2020 – "STAFF ONLY", Salon75 (DK)
- 2020 – "GRAVEDWELLERS #1", 5000-year-old Danish tomb (DK)
- 2018 – "Salvation of The Beast", Performance, Flerdagsdrøm Festival (DK)
- 2018 – "Hack;Dem", Projectrum VERA (DK)
- 2018 – "First Date", Projectrum VERA (DK)
Grants
- 2025 – Danish Art Foundation, project grant
- 2025 – Edel og Wilhelm Daubenmerkls Almenvelgørende Fond
- 2025 – Lizzi og Mogens Staal Fonden
- 2025 – Foundation Idella
- 2024 – Sozziparken v/Søstrene Sozzis Kultur og Fritidsfond
Education
- 2024–2025: MFA, The School of Sculpture, Prof. Dora Budor & Prof. Simon Dybbroe Møller, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (DK)
- 2023–2024: MFA, The Media School, Prof. Jane Jin Kaisen, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (DK)
- 2022: Academy of Fine Arts Prague, Prof. Dušan Zahoransky & Pavla Sceranková (CZ)
- 2021: Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Prof. Dorit Margreiter (AT)
- 2019–2023: BFA, Funen Art Academy (DK)
Curatorial Work
- Salon75
Selected Work on Moving Images
- 2024 – "Mirror Touch (Archipelago DLC_01)" (Pre and post sound)
- 2024 – "Em Assumes Death" [Fiction] (Production and Filming Support)
- 2023 – "Archipelago (No one is an island)" (Pre and post sound)
- 2021 – "GAME engine" (Pre and post sound)
- 2021 – "Forever young forever old: A love story" [Documentary] (Pre and post sound)
- 2021 – "Loves me, loves me not" [Documentary] (Pre and post sound)
- 2021 – "Det Pittoreske Bæst" [Fiction] (Pre and post sound)
- 2020 – "THE END", Joshua Oppenheimer workshop (Sound recording)
- 2018 – "Bølger" [Fiction] (Pre and post sound)
- 2017 – "Doctor Harvig" [Fiction] (Pre and post sound)
- 2016 – "Delphi" [Fiction] (Sound design)
- 2016 – "Da dybvad blev delt" [Documentary] (Sound design)