sjæl/seele/soul
simon dybbroe møller
20 august–11 october 2025
Sjæl/Seele/Soul
Simon Dybbroe Møller
text by Saim Demircan
‘A camera store seems a perfect setting for a horror movie. A working title might be, Invasion of the Camera Robots; it would be based on the Cyclops myth, with the camera clerk as Ulysses. A camera’s eye alludes to many abysses. Each click would expose the clerk and his store to partial annihilation. I leave the ending for readers to figure out.’
– Robert Smithson, Art Through the Camera’s Eye (c. 1971)
Generally regarded as science-fiction, Jordan Peele’s 2022 film, Nope is actually about photography. Up until the finale, the picture’s extraterrestrial – a UFO that is more predatory animal than ship – takes the form of a gigantic, monstrous eye. Its pupil is an orifice through which it consumes people–spectators, screaming as they pass through the eye’s digestive tract: a canal similar to the pleated bellows of a Victorian camera. Towards the end of Nope, the alien shapeshifts into what looks like an 19th-century aperture. The camera eye is cyclopic, the film seems to suggest. It devours what it sees. While the unknown (the inexplicable, the unseeable) is in the sky above us – just as similar genre films have placed it in the sea, in outer space, or in the desert – the more pervasive horror of being watched, or of being photographed, is exemplified by the singular camera lens.
It has always been there, watching throughout history, in myth. In his unpublished text, Art through the Camera’s Eye, Robert Smithson relates the camera store to Polyphemus’ cave. It is inescapable without being devoured by the cyclopic camera eye, a tricky situation much like Odysseus got himself into. How then, do we evade the camera’s eye today, when photography is so ubiquitous that we effectively live in Smithson’s horror film?
Photography has always been present, treated with suspicion even, in Simon Dybbroe Møller’s work. In Performance (2006), the artist jumps upon a pile of slide cases (within which the documentation of the performance is then put in and shown through cracked glass). In one photograph from the 2017 series, Young Cultural Producers, he mockingly captures a young man emulating the pose of a street photographer. The title of Dybbroe Møller’s bin-lined sculptures, Aperture & Orifice (2014) equates the camera with a sphincter. In Retinal Rift (2025), the artist captures the camera eye itself. Each photograph in this series depicts a single eye subject to the red-eye effect. Light from a camera flash catches the blood at the back of the retina and makes the pupil appear red.
The eye is caught off-guard, the flash revealing life in a subject long considered dead. As Rebecca Solnit observes in River of Shadows, ‘[…] photography was associated with death both in the many, many images of the dead made during the early years of the medium and in the way photography seemed to cheat death by making at least appearance permanent’. With Retinal Rift, Dybbroe Møller offers a counterimage to the lifelessness that permeates much of his other work: calcified bodies, disembodied limbs, broken bones.
It is not the first time the singular eye has appeared in Dybbroe Møller’s work. For News (2010), he filmed makeshift versions of news broadcasting logos resembling the all-seeing eye, a symbol of protection that has been used from Ancient Egypt to surveillance technology. Yet providence must also be treated with suspicion. The eye hangs there in a cloud watching us; we can never escape its gaze, or as Smithson says, ‘As long as cameras are around no artist will be free from bewilderment’.
text by Simon Dybbroe Møller
My grandparents dressed as if they had stepped out of a sepia-toned gelatin silver print, their clothes all beige, grey, black, and brown. They taught at the local school, played the organ in church. Like early photography, they weren’t exactly lively. Strict Christians, their behaviour was measured, somewhat stiff. Their grandparents had lived in a world where the fastest communication device was the pigeon. A time where leather was, what plastic is to us today – photography, an exciting and exclusive new technology. My grandparents’ grandparents existed before electricity “made angels of us all”1, before “the car created highways and resorts (…) the automobile version of civilization”2. They lived in a time where the landscape had not yet been reduced to stage and model – for the car and for the camera. Before we sacrificed the near to gain the far.
The large photograph Commute (2025) shows a hearse on a highway. Surrounded by people commuting to work, making calls, playing songs, cursing, singing along, in their sedans, hatchbacks, trucks, coupes, SUVs, vans, pickups and busses, it must have been the only vehicle heading not into the day, but out of it – a soulless body moving among the living.
Death is the ultimate unshareable event. In this deal with the devil, life itself, the thing as such, is traded for its ultimate counterfeit. A lifeless body is perfect representation. No imitation, no make-believe, not even likeness, just the same. The thing itself, unchanged yet altered. This perfect image, however, creates an unbearable void. So, we bury or burn the corpse, removing it from touch. It is an iconoclasm of sorts – a removal of the most literal image from circulation. Commute shows a body’s final ride. A moving image.
Photography is like a seamlessly executed magic trick. Seduced, we overlook how each image carries with it a whole reservoir of other photographs, past and present, alongside the motif it depicts. If the glowing red pupils in Retinal Rift (2025) recall horror films, party pics of drunken eyes, grainy tabloids claiming paranormal activity or silver gelatin prints of mediums vomiting woolly white cotton, it is because, like all photographs today they function like pictures of pictures. The images are already there, in the air, circulating, and the act of photographing but a gesture of framing.
Photography, of course, is not transparent mediation. Nor is it merely representation. The Photographic inscribes itself; it leaves a signature. Never fully erasing its own process, is its perfect watermark. Light leaks, lens flares, streaks, halos, are not traces of the supernatural, but marks of photographic materiality itself. The blur is not in the world; it is a trace of the camera’s own motion, a recording of its limitations; the film grain a material presence rather than something representational. Aimed at a human, a flash sometimes makes eyes glow vampire red, as if the person would be possessed. No such magic is at play, but it is also not simply photographic noise. The thing is: Pupils only seem black; really, they are shadowy windows to a blood-rich interior. The flash which fires faster than the iris can contract, bounces off the retina and returns to the lens at the speed of light. The photographic “red eye” then, is reflected light taking on our blood’s crimson hue; a flare filtered by the very plasma that fuels the retinal neurons translating visual data into signals to our brains. In a sense, these photos are recordings of the act of seeing as such, of human optics and the logics of the camera itself.
Photographic images can bypass reflection and go straight to the gut – think of body horror movies or pornography. The Photographic is not merely visual; it is visceral. Retinal Rift shows the mechanics of an organic eye recorded by a machine eye, an encounter between the machine-like and the weirdly human. They are glimpses into the abyss: a shared threshold, an uncanny intelligence, a symbiosis. Like the hearse in Commute, these eyes appear both familiar and wrong, logical and horrendous. They are things that usually slip by. The blood in the image, the body in the flow.
1 Edmund Carpenter, Oh What A Blow That Phantom Gave Me, 1972
2 Marchall McLuhan, Understandig Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964
education
1999–2001 Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, DE
2001–2005 Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, DE
professorship
Since 2019 Professor and head of the Sculpture School, The Royal Danish Academy of Arts, DK
Since 2020 Founder and organizer of the performance series Why Words Now
Since 2021 Runs the exhibition space AYE-AYE with Nina Beier, DK
upcoming
2026 Gammel Strand, Copenhagen, DK (group)
2025 solo exhibition, curated by Benoît Lamy de La Chapelle, La Salle de Bains, Lyon, France (solo)
2025 14th Taipei Biennial curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan
solo exhibitons
2025 Sjæl/Seele/Soul, palace enterprise, Copenhagen, DK
2024 Thick and Thin, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK
2024 Museum, CAN, Vienna, AT
2024 Life, Disneyland Paris, Perth, AU
2024 Animate V, Videodrame CAPC, Bordeaux, FR
2023 All the time in the world, palace enterprise, Copenhagen, DK
2023 Hypnic Jerk, Aarhus Kunsthal, Aarhus, DK
2023 Protein (w. Nina Beier), Ses12Naus, Ibiza, ES
2022 What Do People Do All Day, Francesca Minini, Milan, IT
2022 Boulevard of Crime, Francesca Minini, Milan, IT
2020 What Do People Do All Day, dis.art
2019 Mercury, Tallinn Art Hall, EE
2019 Filmclub Lifeblood, Christian Andersen, Copenhagen, DK
2018 The Middle Ages, CAC, Vilnius, LT
2017 &, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London, UK
2016 Cormorous, Kunsthalle Sao Paulo, BR
2015 The Plumber & The Cook, Kunsfenster, BDI, Berlin, DE
2015 Buongiorno Signor Courbet, Francesca Minini Gallery, Milan, IT
2015 Simon Dybbroe Møller, 83 Pitt Street, New York, US
2015 Lettuce, 21er Haus, Vienna, AU
2014 @ The Shrink, Shanaynay, Paris, FR
2014 Aperture & Orifice, Galerie Kamm, Berlin, DE
2013 Swallow Swallow Spit, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London, UK
2013 Stewism, curated by Chris Sharp, Lulu, Mexico City, MX
2013 Männer und Moral, Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp, NL
2013 2002, Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen, DK
2012 The Roman Two, Hyundai Gallery, Seoul, Korea, KR
2011 Hello, cur. by Adrienne Drake, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome, IT
2011 O, Francesca Minini, Milan, IT
2011 The Nightmare of Reason, C1, Kunsthalle Göppingen, Germany, DE
2011 Rest On Your Belly In The Mud, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London, UK
2011 Flotsam and Jetsam, (with Jacob Dahl Jürgensen), Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, DE
2010 BRAIN, UMMA projects, Ann Arbor, Michigan, US
2010 The Whole of it, Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen, DK
2010 Fast Flickering Black Bug On A Cool White Background, Galerie Kamm, Berlin, DE
2010 The Demon of Noontide, Harris Liebermann, New York, US
2009 Flotsam and Jetsam (with Jacob Dahl Jürgensen), Nicolas Krupp, Basel, CH
2009 Kompendium, Kunstverein Hannover, DE
2009 Appendix, Frankfurter Kunstverein, DE
2009 Untitled, Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen, DK
2008 Not Nature Near, Francesca Minini, Milan, IT
2008 Here We Stand, Lost In Wonder, Harris Lieberman (with Bernd Ribbeck), New York, US
2007 Real decent golden jumper, (with Lisa Jugert), Dependance, Brussels, BE
2007 Like Origami Gone Wrong, Kunstmuseum Thun, CH
2007 On ill winds and loss of sanity, part II, Galerie Kamm, Berlin, DE
2007 Like Origami Gone Wrong, Aarhus Kunstbygning, Aarhus, DK
2007 On ill winds and loss of sanity, part I, westlondonprojects, London, UK
2006 Letter from the new world to the old world, cur. by Susanne Pfeffer, Künstlerhaus Bremen, DE
2006 All yesterday’s parties, Art Basel Statements, Galerie Kamm, CH
2006 The view, the show, the word and the architect, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, DE
2005 A journey from black to white through the vast desert of entropic grey, Kunstverein Braunschweig, DE
2005 Double Vision, FLACA, London, UK
2005 Ufarlige Historier, Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf, DE
2004 ABABCB, Galerie Kamm, Berlin Incomplete Tales , Schnittraum, Cologne, DE
2003 Fresh and Upcoming, Frankfurter Kunstverein, DE
group exhibitions
2025 1st Klaipėda Biennial curated by Valentinas Klimasauskas, Klaipėda, LT
2025 SUPERGAMES, dummy, Copenhagen, DK
2025 retrospective screening at Babylon Cinema curated by Olaf Stüber, Berlin, DE
2025 Sol Nexø, Bornholm, DK (group w/ Kirsten Ortwed & Nina Beier)
2025 THIN PLACES: God Human Animal Machine, curated by South Into North, Kunsthal 44, Møn, DK
2025 ARoS COLLECTION: 1960 – NOW, ARoS, Aarhus, DK
2025 9-5, 5-9, Room Room, Copenhagen, DK
2024 Artificial Optimism, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, DK
2023 X. A CAPITAL DESIRE, Bicolore, Paris, FR
2023 Full Days, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK
2022 Through The Lens, SMK Thy, DK
2022 Ny Dansk Kunst, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, DK
2022 The Curse of Smooth Operations, Impakt, Utrecht, Utrecht, NL
2021 The Exit, cur. by DIS, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Medellín, CO
2021 To Do Without So Much Mythology, cur. by F. Pedraglio, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, AT
2021 Cut a rug a round square, cur. by Jessica Stockholder, OGR Torino, IT
2021 Grave Monuments, cur. by Jacob Fabricius, Art Sonje, Seoul, KR
2021 DIS.ART y La Casa Encendida, cur. by DIS, La Casa Encendida, ES
2021 Gravmonumenter, curator Jacob Fabricius, Aarhus Kunsthal, DK
2020 What Do People Do All Day, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK
2020 Metamorphosis Overdrive, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Gallen, CH
2020 What Do People Do All Day, Tranen Space for Contemporary Art, Hellerup, DK
2020 Real Time, Seventeen Gallery, London, UK
2020 Back to the Present, Städelmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, DE
2020 Sammlungs Ausstellung, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, DE
2019 D, Le Château Rentilly, Paris, FR
2019 FONCTEUR D’OUBLI, cur. by Benoît Maire, Frac Île-de-France, Paris, FR
2019 Lulu at CITY PRICE/SSES, curated by Hugo Vitrani, Paris, FR
2019 Oversharing, Friends in Deed Gallery, San Francisco, US
2019 Werethings, Galeria Plan B, Berlin, DE
2019 Editions, Peles Empire, Berlin, DE
2018 Superstition, MAARES, Maastricht, NL
2018 Die Wert der Freiheit, 21er Haus, Wien, AT
2018 In Addition, Mostyn, Wales, UK
2018 Exhibiting the Exhibition, Kunsthalle Baden, Baden, DE
2018 NRW Forum Düsseldorf, DE
2018 Supergood, cur. By Hugo Canoilas, MAAT, Lisbon, PT
2018 Beaufort Triennial, cur. By Heidi Ballet, BE
2017 Original Fake, cur by Adam Carr, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, ES
2017 Cool, Calm and Collected, ARoS, Aarhus, DK
2017 A Rock That Keeps Tigers Away, cur by Post Brothers, Kunstverein München, DE
2017 Dying Well, Museum Für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, DE
2017 Greed, cur. By Chosil Kil, Art Sonje, Seoul, KR
2017 Instructions for Happiness, cur. by: Severin Dünser, Olympia Tzortzi, 21er Haus, Vienna, AT
2017 Welcome Too Late, cur. By Toke Lykkeberg, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK
2017 Tilting at windmills, Roberta, Frankfurt am Main, DE
2017 Remastered – die Kunst der Aneignung, Kunsthalle Krems, AT
2016 Instructions for Happiness, cur. by: Severin Dünser, Olympia Tzortzi, KUP, Athens, GR
2016 9th Berlin Biennal, cur. by Dis, Berlin, DE
2016 De Toi a la Surface, cur. by Francois Aubart, Le Plateau, Frac Île-de-France, Paris, FR
2016 Stranger, cur. by Rose Bouthellier, MOCA Cleveland, US
2016 This is your replacement, cur. by Adam Carr, Sies & Höke, Düsseldorf, DE
2016 Presently, cur. by Tobias Rehberger, Neugerriemschneider, Berlin, DE
2016 Das Gespenst der Freiheit – 15 Einreichungen, cur. by Alex Wissel, WDR, Cologne, DE
2015 Hands off!, cur. by Francesca Gavin, Room of Requirement, Berlin, DE
2015 Natural Flavor, curated by Vivien Trommer, Ludlow 38, New York, US
2015 Eggplant, cur. By Jackie Im. Et. Al, San Francisco, US
2015 CO-WORKERS – Network as Artist, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, FR
2015 War II, Cur by Adam Carr, Mostyn, Llandudno, UK
2015 FIT FOR PURPOSE, Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, CH
2015 EXTENSION DU DOMAINE DU JEU, Espace 315 – Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR
2015 You Will Find Me If You Want Me In The Garden, Galerie Chez Valentin, Paris, FR
2015 To Blow Smoke in Order to Heal, Albert Baronian, Brussels, BE
2014 Bikuben, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Utah, US
2014 Superficial Hygiene, De Hallen Haarlem, NL
2014 Le Nouveau Festival, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR
2014 Apples & Pears, Cur. by James Clarkson, Drei, Cologne, DE
2013 0 Performance – The Fragile Beauty of Crisis, 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, RU
2013 Nur was nicht ist ist möglich, Museum Folkwang, Essen, DE
2013 Amsterdamer Schützengilde, Kunstsaele Berlin, Berlin, DE
2013 I knOw yoU, IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, UK
2013 Contemplating Death, Goethe Institute, Moscow, RU
2013 six memos for the next …, Magazin4 – Bregenzer Kunstverein, AT
2013 When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, MOCA Detroit, US
2013 Nur Hier, Sammlung Zeitgenössischer Kunst Der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, DE
2012 East, Vier Räume aus der Sammlung Schürrmann, Kunstsaele, Berlin, DE
2012 Castle in the Air, Zamek Castle, Poznan, PO
2012 Coquilles Mécaniques, cur. by Joanna Fiduccia, CRAC Alsace, FR
2012 BUSY: Exhausted self/ unlimited ability, 21er Haus, Belvedere, Vienna, AT
2012 Re-Opening, Deweer Gallery, Otegem, BE
2012 I Wish This Was a Song, The National Museum of Art, Oslo, NO
2012 Treffpunkt Berlin, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, DK
2012 An Incomplete History of Incomplete Works of Art, cur. by A. Carr, Francesca Minini, Milan, IT
2012 When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, CCA Wattis, San Francisco, US
2012 Prospectif Cinéma, cur. By Christine Macel, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR
2012 Wir sind alle Astronauten, Zeppelin Museum, Friedrichshafen, DE
2011 Danser sa vie – Dance your life, cur. By Christine Macel, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR
2011 Berlin 2000 – 2011, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, JP
2011 All around zero – a small celebration of loss, cur. by Stefan Burger, ReMap 3, Athens, GE
2011 Up North, Art Gallery of Alberta, CA
2011 A Slowdown at the Museum, Extra City, Antwerp, BE
2011 Momentum 2011 – 6th Nordic Biennial for Contemporary Art, Moss, NO
2011 MMK 1991-2011: 20 Years of Presence, MMK, Frankfurt, DE
2011 Rudolf Steiner and Contemporary Art, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, CZ
2011 Wir sind alle Astronauten, MARTa Herford, Herford, DE
2011 Based in Berlin, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, DE
2011 a painting show, curated by Aaron Moulton, Auto Center, Berlin, DE
2011 Radical Autonomy 2, Netwerk, Aalst, BE
2011 Anima, Linguaggio, Malinconia, Informazione, GAM, Turin, IT
2011 The Activity of Sound, curated by Florian C Seedorf, Grieder Contemporary, Berlin, DE
2011 The Cosmos of Rudolf Steiner, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, DE
2011 January White Sale, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, US
2010 A Never Ending Tory, cur. by Chris Sharp, Edmonton, CA
2010 Transatlantische Impulse, cur. by S. v. d. Ley and M. Richter, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, DE
2010 Double Take, SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark, DK
2010 Prendre la porte et faire le mur, cur. by Florence Ostende, FRAC Provence, Marseille, FR
2010 Gesehen und Geliebt # 4: Besser leben mit…, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, DE
2010 Yesterday will be better, Aargauer Kunsthaus, DE
2010 Mutiny seemed a probability, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome, IT
2010 Ce n’est pas une image juste, c’est juste une image, IMO Projects, Copenhagen, DK
2010 Rudolf Steiner und die Kunst der Gegenwart, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, DE
2010 Untitled (In Which the Wind is a Protagonist), cur. by Chris Sharp, La Générale, Paris, FR
2010 Düsseldorf, cur by Shila Katami, the forgotten bar, Berlin, DE
2010 The Zero Budget Biennial, cur. by Joanna Fiduccia and Chris Sharp, Rockeby, London, UK
2010 The Zero Budget Biennial, cur. by Joanna Fiduccia and Chris Sharp, Klemm’s, Berlin, DE
2010 The Zero Budget Biennial, cur. by Joanna Fiduccia and Chris Sharp, Pianissimo, Milan, IT
2010 Bilder in Bewegung – Künstler & Video / Film 1958 – 2010, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, DE
2010 Tracing the Invisible, Schloss Ringenberg, cur. by Nadine Zeidler, Hamminkeln, DE
2010 The Berlin Box, Kunsthalle Andratx / CCA, Mallorca, ES
2010 And so on, and so on, and so on…, cur. by M.S. Smith, Harris Lieberman, New York, US
2009 Radical Autonomy, Le Grand Café, Saint Nazaire, FR
2009 The World is Yours, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, DK
2009 The Zero Budget Biennial, cur. by J. Fiduccia and C. Sharp, Carlos Cardenas Galerie, Paris, Fr
2009 ars viva 08/09 – Inszenierung / Mise en scène, Augarten Contemporary, Vienna, AT
2009 The young people who visit our ruins see nothing but a style, GAM, Torino, IT
2009 My Summer Group Show, Gallery Lelong, New York, US
2009 ars viva 08/09 – Inszenierung / Mise en scène, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, DE
2009 A Twilight Art, Harris Lieberman, New York, US
2009 Still Moving Still, Cultuurcentrum Knokke-Heist, BE
2008 ‘Are you alright? You look so Orange?, Galerie Erik Steen, Oslo, NO
2008 50 Moons of Saturn, curated by Daniel Birnbaum, Torino Triennial, Torino, IT
2008 Enter, Brandts Kunsthallen, Odense, DK
2008 ars viva 08/09 – Inszenierung / Mise en scène | Museum im Kulturspeicher, Würzburg, DE
2008 All the Best, cur by Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Gallery one one one, London, UK
2008 Megastructure Reloaded, cur. by Sabrina v. d. Ley & M. Richter, Staatliche Münze, Berlin, DE
2008 Videoprogramm, cur. by Astrid Mania, Brandenburgischer Kunstverein Potsdam, DE
2008 Grabbing at Straws, Studio Guenzani, Milan, IT
2008 Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art, cur by F. Manacorda and Lydia Yee, Barbican, London, UK
2008 Fusion//Confusion, Museum Folkwang, Essen, DE
2008 Been Up So Long It Looks Like Down To Me, Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver, CA
2008 In the Stream of Life, Betonsalon, Paris, FR
2008 Into It, Kunstverein Hildesheim, Hildesheim, DE
2008 The Dark Side of the Moon, Karma International, Zurich, CH
2008 Neuer Konstruktivismus, Bielefelder Kunstverein, DE
2008 Reinterpretation of Modern Art, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, IR
2008 Made in Germany, Kunstverein Hannover, DE
2008 Kirkhoff Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, DK
2007 The new domestic landscape, kjubh Kunstverein e.V., Köln, DE
2007 9 or 10 works I used to like, in no order, cur. by Luca Lo Pinto, Monitor, Rome, IT
2007 Our affects fly out of the field of human reality, Galerie Sandra Bürgel, Berlin, DE
2007 Das Kapital – Blue Chips & Masterpieces, MMK, Frankfurt am Main, DE
2006 Deep into that darkness peering, Galerie Kamm, Berlin, DE
2006 Was Wäre Wenn #6 – Für die Ewigkeit, Jet, Berlin, DE
2006 I’m Yours Now, Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York, US
2006 The known and the unknown, Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen, DK
2006 Irrational thoughts should be followed logically, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, US
2006 Problems on the way to the modern world, Galerie Kamm, Berlin, DE
2006 The World State, Erik Steen Gallery, Oslo, NO
2006 Fantom, cur. by Søren Andreasen and Jesper Rasmussen, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK
2005 Lichtkunst aus Kunstlicht, ZKM, Karlsruhe, DE
2005 John Taylor: Imagination of Things Imaginable, cur. by S. Prinz, Galerie Nagel, Berlin, DE
2005 Not a drop but the fall, cur. by Elmgreen and Dragsett, Künstlerhaus Bremen, DE
2005 Celebration, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg, DE
2005 Post Notes, Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, US
2005 Shadow Play, Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, DE
2005 Irrational thoughts should be followed logically, cur. by P. Ziegler, Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart, DE
2005 Shadow Play, Kunsthallen zu Kiel,DE
2005 The Imaginary Number, cur. by Anselm Franke, KW – Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, DE
2005 Kunstverein Marburg, Marburg, DE
2004 Kurzdavordanach , Sammlung Schürmann, SK-Stiftung, Cologne, DE
2004 Welt national, Trienale für zeitgenössische Kunst Oberschwaben, Kloster Weingarten, DE
2004 Portal III, curated by Birgit Eusterschulte, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, DE
2004 Black Friday, org. by Christoph Keller/Revolver, Galerie Kamm, Berlin, DE
2004 Things to come, curated by Jacob Dahl Jürgensen, Flaca Gallery, London, UK
2003 Make It New, cur. By Jochen Volz, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, DE
2003 State of the upper floor: Panorama, cur. by Michael Beutler, Kunstverein München, DE
2003 Western, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK
public collections
ARoS, Aarhus, Denmark
Belvedere 21, Wien, Austria
FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, France
FRAC Île-de-France, France
GAM, Turin, Italy
KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark
Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany
MMK, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany
SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
Städelmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
The Federal Collection of Contemporary Art, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Germany
awards & grants
2009 Villa Aurora, Los Angeles
2008—2009 Ars Viva Preis des Kulturkreises der deutschen Wirtschaft im BDI
2007—2008 Scholarship by order of the government of Hessen for New York
2006 Villa Romana, Florence
2005 Absolventenpreis Städelschule
2005 Förderpreis für Bildende Kunst der Bundesministerin für Bildung und Forschung
2004 Best Freestyle Stand, Art Forum Berlin
bio
1976 Born in Aarhus, Denmark
Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark
As a prominent exponent of an art that emphasises connection, juxtaposition and relationality, Simon Dybbroe Møller’s works engage with the relationship between the weighty materiality of sculpture, and their photographic representation and mediation. Dybbroe Møller explores what sculpture is or can be, in a world that is dictated by the photographic; a world where our economy and attention has shifted from the object to the image. Rather than settling into one medium or style, he continuously probes new territories, moving between film, photography, found objects, sculpture, writing, curating and teaching. Simon Dybbroe Møller was born in Aarhus, DK in 1976 and has been Professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Sculpture in Copenhagen since 2019. He co-runs the exhibition space AYE-AYE and curates the performance series Why Words Now.