file
tora schultz
25 october–7 december 2024
File
Tora Schultz
File is an exhibition and an action and a unit, the refining result of a certain tool, the removal of matter and the general sheet of paper/information. Filing is stowing away and keeping and making stuff known and adjusting the shape of things.
A secretary is a piece of furniture (and it’s a subordinated position, too). Essentially archival when it comes to its function, all those drawers and keyholes and little cabinet doors, even a foldable desk for writing or organizing. Obviously, secrecy is the secretary’s virtue. This piece of furniture has been stripped, undressed plywood beneath the mahogany stain. It’s see-through like the opposite of the privacy its name and appearance initially declare. Exposed and exposing.
The five books were five diaries. Prior to being blocks of bronze displayed on the wall they were bundles of paper. All pages burned in the casting process and their words with them, what remains is the long-lived metal filling out the five holes created by the absent books. While the writing is now thoroughly deleted, the locks made it through the fire. Doing their job so to speak. It is difficult to decide if the secrets are now more gone than kept.
The chair will be leaning up against the table when the gallerist leaves, this is an instruction. Like: bend over. Sitting in the chair means working, doing visible things. And when a day’s tasks are done, lights are off, after hours kick in. Assume the position.
Bend over, 2024
Chair, table Variable dimensions
Disclose, 2024
Secretary (plywood, mdf, mahogany stain) 213.5 x 107 x 84.5 cm
Appendix (1-5), 2024
Bronze, various metals
21.5 x 17 x 3.5 | 19 x 16 x 3 | 19 x 16 x 3 | 15 x 12 x 2 | 17 x 15 x 1 cm
Tora Schultz (b. 1991) is a Danish artist, currently living and working in New York. Schultz is a sculptor, her affinity for existing objects is profound as is her way of going about them. She operates in the opaque intersection between producing and preserving, and her methods include shaping, bending, burning, disclosing. In this exhibition, a language is presented: sculpting, as well as writing, is to reveal and to disguise at the same time, to store something inner in the outer world. Her work is usually preoccupied with meticulous treatments of hard materials, equally devoted to bare their internal qualities while exposing functional assets and shortcomings. Tora Schultz applies a discrete insistence on the handmade and the wordless. Telling a secret while keeping it.
By Nanna Friis
education
2015–2021 MA Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, SE
upcoming
2026 Permanent installation ’The Shelter’, at Deep Forest Art Land, Kibæk, DK
2025 Opening Night, Copenhagen, DK (Duo w/ Julie Falk)
2025 COI, Copenhagen, DK (solo)
2025 Grønningen, Den Frie, Copenhagen, DK (group)
2025 Performance, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, DK
solo exhibitions
2025 highlight, Viborg Kunsthal, Viborg, DK
2025 FILES, Aarhus Kunsthal, Aarhus, DK
2024 FILE, palace enterprise, Copenhagen, DK
2023 LISTE art fair, Basel, CH
2022 Bitch on Wheels, O-Overgaden Kunsthalle, Copenhagen, DK
2022 Dirty, palace enterprise, Copenhagen, DK
2021 STAND HARD, Bizarro, Copenhagen, DK
2021 2001,NSFW/3e våningen, Göteborg, SE
2021 Stranger Inside, Galleri Mejan, Stockholm, SE
group exhibitions
2025 The Art of Collecting, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, SE
2025 SUPERGAMES, dummy, Copenhagen, DK
2024 Do it, Socle Du Monde, HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, DK
2024 Group Therapy, ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art, Ishøj, DK
2023 X. A CAPITAL DESIRE, Bicolore, Paris, FR
2023 Issues Gallery, Stockholm, SE
2022 Another Surrealism, Den Frie – Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, DK
2022 Another Surrealism, Kunstmuseum Sønderjylland, DK
2022 P for Perspective, Simian, Copenhagen, DK
2022 Norberg Festival, Norberg, SE *
2022 Clown Kingdom, Le Bicolore, Paris, FR
2021 Downtown, Issues Gallery, Stockholm, SE
2021 Split Screen, SKF/Konstnärshuset, Stockholm, SE (Duo)
2021 MONSTESUPPE, KØS – Museum of Art in Public Spaces, Køge, DK *
2021 Frusen Glädje, TreKronor Culture, Stockholm, SE
2020 Tracking Distribution, Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm, SE *
2020 MMXX, Konstakademien, Stockholm, SE
2019 A Play A Tale, Rundetårn, Copenhagen, DK
2019 World Bone, Arcway, Copenhagen, DK
2019 Cloak of Mercy, Horse and Pony Gallery, Berlin, DE
2019 Feed them with the pages, W:I:P Konsthall, Stockholm, SE 2019 UTTRAN II, Rönninge, Stockholm, SE
2018 It’s about time, Skulpturlandsby Selde, Selde, DK
2018 Souvenirs of affairs, Galerie A.M. 180, Prague, CZ
2018 Like a chicken with its head cut off, DELFI, Malmö, SE
public collections
ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art, Ishøj, Denmark
Kunstmuseum Brandts, Odense, Denmark
KUNSTEN, Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg, DK
Museum Sønderjylland, The Art Museum in Tønder, Denmark
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
New Carlsberg Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark
Novo Nordisk Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark
public comissions
2022 Hometown, Stockholm, SE *
awards & grants
2025 Astrid Noack Prize
2024 Aarhus Art Prize
2024 Working grant, The Danish Arts Foundation
2023 Læge Inger Goldmanns Fond
2023 Working grant, The Danish Arts Foundation
2022 Carl Nielsen og Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Talent Grant
2022 Sigrid Fridman legat för unga skulptörer
2021 Niels Wessel Bagges Kunstfond Honorary Grant
residencies
2025 ISCP, New York, 4 mdr. Studio Grant, International Studio & Curatorial Program, The Danish Arts Foundation, US
2024 IASPIS, New York 12 mdr. Studio Grant, International Studio & Curatorial Program, US
2023 Art Hub Residency Fall, 5 mdr. Studio Grant, Copenhagen, DK
2023 IASPIS, Stockholm 6 mdr. Studio Grant, Konstnärsnämnden, SE
2017 AZ-WEST, Institute of Investigative Living – Andrea Zittel, US
2016 Abisko Scientific Research Station, Abisko, SE
bio
Born in 1991, Aarhus, Denmark
Lives and works in New York, US
Tora Schultz is a Danish sculptor. Her affinity for existing objects is profound as is her way of going about them. Operating in the opaque intersection between producing and preserving, her methods include shaping, bending, burning, disclosing. A preoccupation with meticulous treatments of hard materials is often seen in her work, with an equal devotion to bare their internal qualities while exposing functional assets and shortcomings. Tora Schultz applies a discrete insistence on the handmade and the wordless.