26 August 2018 – 27 January 2019
What can be conceived can be drawn. The caricaturist Jens Hage
The Nivaagaard Collection is thrilled to announce a major autumn exhibition featuring the cartoonist and illustrator Jens Hage (born 1948). Jens Hage turns 70 this year and is related to the founder of the museum, Johannes Hage (1842-1923). Jens Hage is known for his daily caricatures in the Danish newspaper Berlingske as well as his satire drawings in the annual satirical publication Blæksprutten, and the exhibition will be a cheerful reunion with key events and famous personalities over the past four decades of Danish history.
Humour, politics and a keen insight into human nature
Whatever their station in Danish society, no one is safe from Hage’s drawing pencil. He has mocked politicians in the service of democracy and charted the development of gender roles in Denmark through time, as well as the Danes’ place in an increasingly globalised world. Collectively, Hage’s works constitute a piece of Danish history, sprinkled with humour, edge, eroticism and an insight into human nature. His uncomplicated drawings make us a little wiser about ourselves, each other and the times in which we live.
The exhibition will also feature Hage’s private works, particularly sketches in which the artist inquisitively sought to capture the spirit of new places and people he came across in his travels. His oeuvre is as massive as it is imaginative, and the works featured in the exhibition have been selected among thousands of others he has produced over his career. Hage plays with words, shapes and concepts, often including letters in his drawings. He touches on everything from politics to ethics to philosophy, always with a dash of irony, and the main focus of the exhibition is on the role of caricatures in art and culture.