Frej Volander Himmelstrup
Superposition
Kurzbauergasse, Vienna · 2026
Raft, Oleander leaf, checkered paper and greyboard behind polarizer film. Mounted in Tao's wooden frame.
Exhibited as part of Tao Iver's diploma exhibition "Superposition" at Kurzbauergasse in Vienna. View full documentation
Formula 1
Woonhuis, De Ateliers, Amsterdam · 2025
Games, Oil and gesso on linen canvas, wood
F, Oil on jute, wood
Untitled, Oil on linen canvas
Companion, Acrylic, wool, tambourine
1 AM, Fimo clay, aluminium, 1:48 cobblestone bricks
Documentation of performance taking place in exhibition space during intervention week
The Gawker
A drifting flâneur moves through the city, reciting fragments of Baudelaire in dialogue with a street musician. The performance traces the moment when the reflective flâneur—the conscious observer of modern life—slips into the role of the gawker, the passive spectator absorbed by the city’s spectacle and decay. Between detachment and immersion, observation and distraction, the work unfolds as a study of perception in the crumbling theatre of the modern metropolis.
Performers:
Nathan Favot — The Gawker
Halldor Olofsson — Street Musician
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
Art Hub Copenhagen · 2024
Art Hub Channel
Video stills
FREJ VOLANDER HIMMELSTRUP (b. 1996)
Artist & Sound Engineer
Frejsel@gmail.com
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS & COMMISSIONS
2026: Group Exhibition, Culterim Space, Berlin (DE)
2026: Duo Exhibition, Gallery AAAA Nordhavn, Copenhagen (DK)
2027: Group show, Vermilion Sands, Copenhagen, (DK)
2028 – 2029: Public Art Commission, Rytterkasernen & Bolbro Care Homes, Odense (DK)
EDUCATION
2026-2027 Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Programme for Art in Public Space 1-year postgraduate programme w. Marie Lund
2025 – 2024: MFA, School of Sculpture (Prof. Dora Budor & Prof. Simon Dybbroe Møller), The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen (DK)
2024 – 2023: MFA, School of Media Arts (Prof. Jane Jin Kaisen), The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen (DK)
2023 – 2019: BFA, The Funen Art Academy, Odense (DK)
2022: Guest Student, Academy of Fine Arts Prague (Prof. Dušan Zahoransky & Pavla Sceranková) (CZ)
2021: Guest Student, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Prof. Dorit Margreiter) (AT)
2018 – 2015: Sound Design / Sound Engineering Apprenticeship (Gi'Lyd) (DK)
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2025: Formula 1, Woonhuis - De Ateliers, Amsterdam (NL)
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: ... Memory?, Art Hub Copenhagen (DK)
2024: The Bachelors Falsity, Exhibition Space Q, Copenhagen (DK)
2023: The Spring Exhibition 2023 (Forårsudstillingen), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (DK)
2022: Stranger Flowers, Neone, Prague (CZ)
2022: Drafts of Ecology: URD, Fabrika CCI, Moscow (RU)
2021: IT MUST BE MY DREAM, EKA, Tallinn (EST)
2021: Seven Sages Laid Its Foundations, Kur Space, Vienna (AT)
2021: The Funen Art Academy Degree Show / Rundgang, Odense (DK)
2020: GRAVEDWELLERS #1, Site-specific exhibition inside a 5000-year-old Danish passage grave, Lundby (DK)
GRANTS & RESIDENCIES
2026: Artist Residency, EAXO, Chania, Crete (GR)
2025: The Danish Arts Foundation (Statens Kunstfond), Project Grant (DK)
2025: Edel & Wilhelm Daubenmerkls Charitable Foundation Grant
2025: Lizzi & Mogens Staal Foundation Grant
2025: Foundation Idella Grant
2024: Sozziparken Cultural Grant (Søstrene Sozzis Kultur- og Fritidsfond)
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
Salon75, Copenhagen (DK)
SELECTED AUDIO POST-PRODUCTION & MOVING IMAGE WORK
2026: Cone Unit – Directed by Frederik Tøt Godsk [Film] (Audio Post-Production) CPH:DOX Nominated
2025: Rest – Directed by Erdal Bilici [Fiction Film] (Audio Post-Production)
2024: Mirror Touch (Archipelago DLC_01) (Location Sound & Audio Post-Production)
2024: Em Assumes Death [Fiction Film] (Production & Film Assistance)
2023: Archipelago (No one is an island) (Location Sound & Audio Post-Production)
2021: Forever young forever old: A love story [Documentary] (Audio Post-Production) CPH:DOX Nominated
2021: Loves me, loves me not [Documentary] (Audio Post-Production) CPH:DOX Nominated
2021: Det Pittoreske Bæst [Fiction Film] (Location Sound & Audio Post-Production) CPH:DOX Nominated
2020: THE END – Joshua Oppenheimer Masterclass Workshop (Location Sound)