Friendship Exhibition Vienna – Copenhagen
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art
May 2 – June 7, 2026
The exhibition Vienna–Copenhagen presents more than 45 artists from Den Frie Udstilling in dialogue with nearly 100 Austrian colleagues from Wiener Secession, in an energetic display that highlights the potential of the collective format and collegial exchange. Patrick Baumüller is one of the Austrian artists, and in this exhibition he presents the sculptural object CLIMBING TO THE DEATH LINE.
baumuller_DeathLine_Siebdruck
May 1, 5–7 PM:
Exhibition opening at Den Frie, Oslo Plads 1, 2100 Copenhagen Ø
May 2, 2 PM:
Talk by Vanessa Joan Müller in the exhibition on the history of our associations and what these ideas mean today.
With the exhibition Den Frie Udstilling: Vienna–Copenhagen, the members of Den Frie Udstilling invite their sister institution, Wiener Secession, to join as guest exhibitors.
Den Frie Udstilling is Denmark’s oldest artists’ association, founded in 1891 as an alternative to the censored exhibitions at Charlottenborg. Its artists turned towards the international art world and drew inspiration from new artistic movements. Den Frie Udstillingsbygning was built in 1893 and relocated in 1898 to its current location at Oslo Plads, where the association continues to exhibit annually.
Wiener Secession was founded a few years after Den Frie Udstilling, in 1897, by a group of artists around Gustav Klimt who had broken away from the conservative Künstlerhaus. In 1898, Joseph Maria Olbrich designed the Secession building as a built manifesto—a structure symbolising the new association’s commitment to pioneering modernist ideas. The Secession building was a significant inspiration for Willumsen’s design for Den Frie Udstilling.
Like Den Frie Udstilling, Wiener Secession counts some of the country’s most prominent artists among its members, and today they are among the few exhibition venues in Europe still owned and run by artists.
