The Other Louisiana

A 30 minute train ride North from Copenhagen, on the shore of Øresund in Humlebæk, sits the perfect mixture of art, architecture and landscape: The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

We arrived under a grey sky that threatened sprinkles, but not much more. And we were a good sized crowd, exiting the train en masse and branching through both woods and a neighborhood to get to the actual museum.

The museum gift shop is, as they all are, quite accessible from the entrance. Like most museum gift shops, there is a lot of cool stuff to buy, and we spent some time to look at it. But, it was not long before we remembered where we were and the three things we were there to focus on.

Art
The Louisiana has around 4,000 works in its permanent collection, dating from 1945 to the present. Two favorite artists - of almost everyone, judging from the crowds - are Yayoi Kusama and Alberto Giacometti.

Kusama first. We waited in line for and spent a good deal of time in the Gleaming Lights of the Souls.

With its use of mirrors and colored lights, the work placed us in what felt, to me, the center of a vast universe. Or maybe not the center. That’s just it - I felt suspended in space with no real idea of its limits or my position within it. I was delightfully disoriented and could have stayed there for hours.

The Giacometti gallery we sort of stumbled on. We had gotten separated, it was getting late, and we were beginning to hurry our way to where we believed the front exit lay. And then the space opened up in front of us and we were staring over an elongated sculpture framed by the most beautiful picture window. The sculpture was spectacular and unmistakable. The window gave it a run for its money.

The Louisiana also has big, bold contemporary exhibitions. This time a good chunk of space was dedicated to Pipilotti Rist, a Swiss artist I had previously not known.

The Rist retrospective was fantastic. My favorite section was a huge multimedia display that felt half like I was immersed in the home where she grew up and half inside her brain. Small, intimate details about a family room or bedroom setting were juxtaposed against multiple walls saturated with colorful video of nature and natural phenomena.

The overall effect was simultaneously surreal and comforting. Like watching Twin Peaks on the couch, wrapped in your favorite cushy blanket.

There was a lot more art to be seen, and we did see a lot more. But we did not manage to see all of it. Partially because we had the other two aspects of the Louisiana to take in: the architecture and the landscape.

Architecture
You want to know what the real mid-century Danish Modern looks like? Go to the Louisiana.

But if you are still reading, I will give a bit more detail, though there is actually far more to it than I can cover here.

The museum was built around an old villa sitting on beautiful grounds, peering across the water to Sweden. According to the museum’s website, when the architects were asked to base their plans on the old villa, they instead focused on the ground upon which the villa was situated, integrating with the landscape and understating the architecture itself.

How I experienced the result was by getting lost in the art - I honestly lost track of how many galleries I passed through or how much time I spent in them - and then getting caught up in the natural surroundings when I did step out of the galleries. (I will talk more about that in a minute.)

It wasn’t until later that I thought of the buildings themselves. Then I felt a sense of awe at what the architects were able to do. They built beautiful structures and then made them disappear.

The buildings themselves are beautiful, but I really did have to look at pictures to remember them. While at the Louisiana, the art is the star (followed closely by the landscape) and we were lost in it for hours. Moving from room to room and building to building with no idea of the time, or the place, for that matter..

One exception is that big picture window by the Giacometti. There was no not-noticing that.

Landscape
If there is a more beautiful or serene museum location in the world, I have not seen it.

Perched above Oresund, with an expansive view of the water and the Nordic sky, the grounds of the Louisiana are worth a visit on their own. Of course, they are littered with sculptures - a Calder and a really impressive Henry Moore are two of the 45 permanent fixtures in the Sculpture Park.

The day we were there was mostly overcast, and the clouds would come and go and the sky would change. The sculptures would follow, looking one way in the light and another as the sky darkened.

At one point I looked out over the sound and saw three bands of color: the silvery-blue of the water, a band of white where clouds clung to the Swedish coastline, and a darker gray-blue of a large cloud that was threatening rain.

It looked to me like a Rothko. I felt lucky to snap a picture while on the grounds of the Louisiana. I look at the picture frequently to this day and am transported back to the spot, on the cliff, with the air still and a sense of calm pervading the grounds and my mind.

We had dinner reservations in the city (eating in Copenhagen is a whole other post, if not more) so we had to go, reluctantly. There was so much more to take in.

I do plan to go back, someday, post-pandemic.

When that day comes, and if you find yourself in Copenhagen and have a spare day, you should go to the Louisiana. If you love modern art, architecture or landscape, you should book a trip to Copenhagen specifically to spend at least two days at the Louisiana. Perhaps I will see you there.