While the popularity of the traditional marriage is in decline, themed weddings are all the rage. There’s barely a day on social media without somebody getting married in front of the entire crew of the USS Enterprise. No doubt the Cosplayer! – Manga Youth exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark will give you plenty of ideas.
Some marital traditions, though, are here to stay, like throwing confetti at the happy couple outside the venue. Then again, lugging 1,500 kilos at them – the same amount used by Italian artist Lara Favaretto in her exhibition at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek – might be overdoing it.
While many of us want to get hitched on the cheap, you don’t want to end up with poor photos. Funen artist Fritz Syberg (see his portraits in Art and Love at Ordrupgaard) is no longer available (he’s long dead), so maybe you need to get a professional in (we recommend stephanieswannweddings.co.uk, an English photographer based in Copenhagen).
And woe betide anyone who organises a Hindu wedding without the obligatory incense and rosewater. But if you haven’t been invited to any, don’t despair, as Sensual Delights at The David Collection is brimful with delicious fragrances.
1,500 kilos of confetti
Ends June 14; Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Dantes Plads 7, Cph K; glyptoteket.dk
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek has been invaded by the Italian artist Lara Favaretto and 1,500 kilos of confetti. Side by side with the solid marble statues, the soft dunes of confetti create a light and tactile contrast to the heavy, massive marble bodies.
Her 2012 installation We all fall down consists of a glass-framed room in which four industrial fans slowly blow around a huge quantity of coloured confetti, prompting it into sluggish movement. The vast dunes of confetti change constantly, like a landscape or the relics of a party.
Japanese popular culture
Permanent exhibition; National Museum of Denmark, Prince’s Mansion, Ny Vestergade 10, Cph K; natmus.dk
The exhibition Cosplayer! – Manga Youth is a new exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark. Cosplay is the shortened form of costume play. Since the 1980s, young people in Japan have recreated characters from manga, anime and video games. With the Japanese wave, costume play also went global and developed locally.
At the exhibition you will meet three Danish and three Japanese cosplayers who in their own way transcend the borders between industry and consumer, media and human, Japanese and Danish – and create their own media worlds. And you’re invited to play! In the exhibition you can try Denmark’s only purikura (Japanese photo booth).
Sensual fragrances
Ends September 6; The David Collection, Kronprinsessegade 30, Cph K; davidmus.dk/en
The David Collection tends to focus on Islamic art, and its new special exhibition, Sensual Delights, is brimful of incense burners and rosewater sprinklers from the world of Islam. Burners and sprinklers are the vessels for aromatic substances that fill the air with sensual, ethereal fragrances.
The objects are historical, aesthetic works of art that appeal to our visual senses. Visitors to the museum will be able to get a whiff of and study some of these aromatic substances in a specially designed diffuser.
Family portraits
Ends May 10; Ordrupgaard, Vilvordevej 110, Charlottenlund; ordrupgaard.dk
The artist Fritz Syberg (1862-1939) was a central figure in the flourishing artistic milieu that grew up around the city of Kerteminde on Funen in the early 1900s. Today, his characteristic fields and hills represent the epitome of the old Danish countryside.
But Syberg was also known for his family portraits and interior paintings, which the exhibition Art and Love at Ordrupgaard are currently showing. When Syberg died at the age of 77, he was the country’s best-paid artist – a respected and revered master across the whole country.
Find out more at http://www.cphmuseums.com/.
