Den Frie Udstillingsbygning

The Grant of Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl Nielsen is one of the country's largest prizes of honour for Danish artists, and every second year it is awarded to three visual artists.

The recipients of the grant in 2010 were the three artists Sophia Kalkau, Martin Erik Andersen and Thomas Poulsen/FOS, who each received a grant of 600.000 Danish Kroner. In their own way, they have been involved in defining the contemporary art scene, and they are all categorised as being included among the most important young visual artists in Denmark today. This year it is 50 years since the first visual artist was awarded the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Grant. Read more about the grant at: www.nielsen-legat.dk 

In relation to the presentation of the grant, an exhibition with the three artists is arranged in Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen.

       
SOPHIA KALKAU's works has a tight and simple formal expression, often with a point of departure in basic geometrical forms. Her sculptures are often delicately white or powder coloured with a surface which make them appear almost soft. Kalkau also works with photography embodying a narrative expression.



       
MARTIN ERIK ANDERSEN works in the borderline between sculpture and installation. His exhibitions often have the character of larger unified wholes, where the works, so to speak, melts together or are connected by a network of meanings, both in terms of materials and in terms of culture.  The materials stretch from the transparent tissue paper to knitwear and stearin to the classical bronze.



       
THOMAS POULSEN, appear under the artist name FOS.  He works with a concept which he calls social design. He thinks that the way we arrange us in the world actually shape the way we act. His works of art, which often materialises themselves as fantastic developing narratives, can be regarded as models over ways of thinking and behaving.