Elmgreen & Dragset
Elmgreen & Dragset (Michael Elmgreen, b. 1961, Copenhagen, Denmark; Ingar Dragset, b. 1969, Trondheim, Norway) are based in Berlin and have worked together as an artist duo since 1995. They pursue questions of identity and belonging and investigate social, cultural, and political structures in their artistic practice. They are interested in the discourse that can arise if objects are radically re-contextualized and if normal modes for the representation of art are altered.
They have held numerous solo exhibitions at art institutions worldwide, including Centre Pompidou – Metz, Metz (2023- 24); Fondazione Prada, Milan (2022); EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo (2020–21); Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2019–20); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018–19); Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (2016); UCCA, Beijing (2016); PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2015); Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2014); Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2013–14); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2011); ZKM Museum of Modern Art, Karlsruhe (2010); MUSAC, León (2009); Serpentine Gallery, London (2006); Tate Modern, London (2004); and Kunsthalle Zürich (2001).
Amongst their most well-known works are Prada Marfa (2005), a full-scale replica of a Prada boutique in the mid- dle of the Texan desert, Van Gogh’s Ear (2016), which was first presented first by Public Art Fund at the Rockefeller Center in New York, and Bent Pool (2019), permanently installed in Miami Beach’s Pride Park. In December 2020, their work The Hive was installed permanently at Moynihan Train Hall in New York, where it now welcomes visitors entering this renovated extension to Penn Station. In Berlin, the artists won the German Government’s competition for a Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime, which has been permanently in- stalled in the Tiergarten park since 2008, and their outdoor sculpture Statue of Liberty (2018) is permanently installed at the city’s Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart.
Their work has been included in the Bangkok Art Biennial (2018), Istanbul Biennial (2013, 2011, 2001), Liverpool Biennial (2012), Singapore Biennale (2011), Moscow Biennale (2011, 2007), Venice Biennale (2009, 2003), Gwang-ju Biennale (2006, 2002), São Paulo Biennial (2002), and Berlin Biennale (1998). In 2009 they received a special mention for their exhibition, The Collectors in the Nordic and Danish Pavilions, at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Elmgreen & Dragset curated the 15th Istanbul Biennial in 2017. The artists were shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize, Guggenheim Museum, New York (2000) and won the Preis der Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2002). In 2012 Elmgreen & Dragset were selected for London’s Fourth Plinth Commission in Trafalgar Square. In 2015 the artists received honorary doctorates at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and in 2020, they were awarded the B.Z.-Kulturpreis in Berlin.