BHARTI KHER – MYTHOLOGIES
22 August 2025 – 8 March 2026
In the museum’s largest exhibition to date, international contemporary artist Bharti Kher challenges our conventional perceptions of body, gender, identity, and culture.
Mythologies mirror our innermost thoughts, feelings and conflicts. They shed light on how, throughout history, we have dealt with our way of being in the world and our relationship to existential questions about life and the phenomena of nature.
The Mythologies exhibition shows Bharti Kher’s extensive sculptural practice. The artworks address topics of identity, memory, transformation, and the body. Through a visual language that combines objects from various geographical and cultural areas, her works carry traces of lived life. Mythology, nature, and everyday stories meet, overlap, and come together. The many layers of meaning in Kher’s universe simultaneously create a connection to our individual lives and a sense of a larger collective existence.
Castings in a wide range of materials play a central role in her practice. For Kher, castings carry both an outer and inner imprint – a presence and an essence of the cast subject – and bear witness to the body’s central role in her work. The body is the tangible, sensory site of our experiences and the physical and symbolic centre of our notions about identity, gender, stories and mythology. The idea of castings as vessels for something more than just form can be traced back to ancient Egypt, where plaster death masks represented the hope that the soul of the deceased would remain captured within the cast.
The Roman poet Ovid’s (43 BCE–17 CE) Metamorphoses is an important source of inspiration to both Kher and Thorvaldsen. This cycle of poems describes the ability of mythological heroes and gods to transmute. In Ovid’s work and in Graeco-Roman mythology, identity is not a fixed state. Instead, transformation is often the result of collapse: when something is dissolved or destroyed, something new may arise and take shape.
With a diversity of materials and by drawing on various mythologies from around the world, Kher’s sculptures reflect a global world in constant motion, where everything is connected in a cycle of continuous transformation. Like Kher’s sculptures, we are forever changing.
Mythologies is Bharti Khers first solo exhibition in Denmark.
The Mythologies exhibition shows Bharti Kher’s extensive sculptural practice. The artworks address topics of identity, memory, transformation, and the body. Through a visual language that combines objects from various geographical and cultural areas, her works carry traces of lived life. Mythology, nature, and everyday stories meet, overlap, and come together. The many layers of meaning in Kher’s universe simultaneously create a connection to our individual lives and a sense of a larger collective existence.
Castings in a wide range of materials play a central role in her practice. For Kher, castings carry both an outer and inner imprint – a presence and an essence of the cast subject – and bear witness to the body’s central role in her work. The body is the tangible, sensory site of our experiences and the physical and symbolic centre of our notions about identity, gender, stories and mythology. The idea of castings as vessels for something more than just form can be traced back to ancient Egypt, where plaster death masks represented the hope that the soul of the deceased would remain captured within the cast.
The Roman poet Ovid’s (43 BCE–17 CE) Metamorphoses is an important source of inspiration to both Kher and Thorvaldsen. This cycle of poems describes the ability of mythological heroes and gods to transmute. In Ovid’s work and in Graeco-Roman mythology, identity is not a fixed state. Instead, transformation is often the result of collapse: when something is dissolved or destroyed, something new may arise and take shape.
With a diversity of materials and by drawing on various mythologies from around the world, Kher’s sculptures reflect a global world in constant motion, where everything is connected in a cycle of continuous transformation. Like Kher’s sculptures, we are forever changing.
Mythologies is Bharti Khers first solo exhibition in Denmark.
About Bharti Kher
Bharti Kher (b. 1969) is a British-born, New Delhi and London–based artist known for her striking sculptures and installations. With a career spanning nearly 30 years, she has exhibited at major institutions worldwide and is recognized for her poetic and politically engaged art. Kher’s work is held in museums and private collections globally and her awards include Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of Order of Arts and Letters).
Bharti Kher is represented by the galleries Hauser & Wirth, Nature Morte, and Perrotin.
The exhibition is presented with support from the Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation & The Danish Arts Foundation
Please note
For safety reasons, a maximum of 15 people are allowed in each exhibition room. Therefore, larger groups on guided tours will need to split up to ensure we take good care of both the artworks and each other.
Please note
For safety reasons, a maximum of 15 people are allowed in each exhibition room. Therefore, larger groups on guided tours will need to split up to ensure we take good care of both the artworks and each other.