Valdemars Slot: baroque surroundings meet contemporary art

Half the experience of viewing art lies in the surroundings – and few are more impressive or evocative than a 16th-century Danish palace.

Welcome to Valdemars Slot, newly reopened after its transformation into a public art destination. Situated on the island of Tåsinge, this historic home will now host a programme of exhibitions and events each year, from May to September.

Valdemars Slot is the only privately owned Danish royal palace. Its owner, Louise Iuel-Brockdorff Albinus, represents the 11th generation of her family to steward it. By turning the palace into an art venue, she honours its legacy of patronage, presenting both historical and contemporary works: 18th-century portraits by Swedish painter Carl Gustaf Pilo and Danish master Jens Juel, originally created for the palace, are juxtaposed with newly commissioned pieces by international contemporary artists including Czech painter Jiří Georg Dokoupil, British artist Hanne Lippard and Danish artist Pernille With Madsen.

The dialogue between past and present is palpable. In the baroque interiors, gilded rococo portraits share space with sculptural, postmodern works. In one room, Dokoupil’s ‘soap bubble’ paintings, created by blowing pigmented soap bubbles onto canvas, and glass sculptures, which playfully reinterpret Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the ‘readymade’, are displayed alongside Pilo’s royal portraits. The soft curves and colours of the ‘bubbles’ harmonise unexpectedly with Pilo’s elegant brushwork, creating a moment that feels both surprising and satisfying.

Elsewhere, Madsen – who recently fulfilled public commissions at Copenhagen Metro and Aarhus University – reimagines Valdemars Slot’s Riding Hall as an archaeological site. A huge sculptural foot emerges as if being excavated, playing with scale and temporality. The artist also explores the miniature with clawed forms evocative of primordial creatures or homunculi, which are displayed in a vitrine reminiscent of a Renaissance cabinet of curiosities.

In the palace grounds, meanwhile, Lippard transforms the barn into a sound installation, playing a spoken-word piece beginning with the line: ‘A ruin is reconstructed through speech’.

Originally built by King Christian IV in 1588-1648, Valdemars Slot is enjoying a remarkable second life. Like many European palaces, it once served as a museum, but this new incarnation offers something completely different. It is an art space where the old and new not only coexist, but converse.

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