whisk d’or
magnus andersen
21 august–12 october 2024
Whisk d’Or – für Kenner und Liebhaber ♫
Magnus Andersen
Whisk d’Or is a fusion of the well-known cat food brand Whiskas and the French term for gold, symbolizing a blend of everyday commercialism with notions of luxury and allure. In his second solo exhibition at palace enterprise, Magnus Andersen merges the classical traditions of still life and portraiture with the psycho-visual language of contemporary advertising.
At the entrance, visitors are greeted by the imposing presence of Whisk d’Or’s mascot—a giant cat peering out from behind a plate of pâté. This larger-than-life figure, painted with excruciating detail, emerges from an abstract, pastel-yellow background consisting of loosely applied palette knife swatches. The cat’s direct gaze and intricate realism are juxtaposed with the soft, hypnotic patterns of lemony Rorschach surrounding it. Modeled after the iconic Whiskas tabby, Andersen’s cat confronts the viewer head-on. As far as feline nutrition is concerned, Whiskas is the equivalent of fast food—its suspicious quality only matched by its wide accessibility on every supermarket shelf. In Andersen’s vocabulary, the advertisement cat exposes the mechanisms through which consumer desire is manufactured. The interplay between cuteness and softness hints at an underlying domestication of capital, where coziness teeters on the edge of eeriness.
Andersen’s work also highlights how market logic seems to flatten our sense of historicity and difference. The vast array of beautiful objects and earthly pleasures displayed in baroque vanitas painting served as a reminder of human mortality and the futility of material pursuits. Here, however, the classical skulls, flowers, wine, cheeses, and hams have been replaced by pølsehorn—a simple classic among Danish snacks. In one of the works, two almost identical pølsehorn lay beside one another. They are painted with pastose, semi-circular swatches of paint, bulging outward and digging into the canvas simultaneously, amounting to an encounter between the seamless copy/paste logic of digital images and Jean-Paul Sartre’s protagonist in Nausea (1938), whose existential dread is catalyzed by the act of consuming a pastry. On the opposite wall, a slogan cheekily reads “for connoisseurs and amateurs.” As is typical in Andersen’s images, satire serves to express the coexistence of opposites, while the overly meticulous rendering of everyday objects charges them with a libidinal aura, encouraging us to reconsider how values like beauty and authenticity are assigned.
By Astrid Wang
education
2013–2016 Städelschule, (Prof. Judith Hopf), Frankfurt am Main, DE
2010–2016 Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, DK
upcoming
2026 Gammel Strand, Copenhagen, DK (group)
solo exhibitions
2025 Damdramaer, Rønnebæksholm, Næstved, DK
2024 L’Atlantique, profil_paris, Paris, FR
2024 Whisk d’or, palace enterprise, Copenhagen, DK
2024 LISTE art fair, Basel, CH
2023 Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt, DE
2022 Copenhagen, page (NYC), New York, US
2022 Mogens and Other Stories, palace enterprise, Copenhagen, DK
2022 Readers Remedy, Damien & The Love Guru, Brussels, BE
2022 Royaume Des Clowns, Le Bicolore, Maison du Danemark, Paris, FR
2021 Vocals and Lyrics, Huset For Kunst og Design, Holstebro, DK
2021 Agrication, Tranen, Gentofte, DK
2020 NIGHT CALL, Bizarro, Copenhagen, DK
2020 Stockholm Syndrome, Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt, DE
2019 Orchard of Sensibilities, Éclair, Berlin, DE
2018 Danzanti Militanti, Gio Marconi Gallery, Milan, IT
2017 L’éducation régionale, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, DE
2016 Seedless_Grapes <3, Shoot The Lobster, New York, US
2015 Agrimundo, Bianca D’Alessandro, Copenhagen, DK
2015 Spazzacamini, Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt, DE
2014 Magnus Andersen, VeSch, Vienna, AU
2012 Commerz Transsaharian, Peinture et Sculpture, Copenhagen, DK
group exhibitions
2025 Syndens Blomster, Galleri Tom Christoffersen, Copenhagen, DK
2024 Koloristerne, Den Frie Centre for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, DK
2024 Milky Ways, The Nivågaard Collection, Nivå, DK
2024 Two Weekends, YEAH, Brussels, BE
2023 ANOTHER SURREALISM, Museum Sønderjylland, DK
2023 Downtown Issues II, Issues, Stockholm, SE
2022 ANOTHER SURRELIASM, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, DK
2022 Royaume Des Clowns, Le Bicolore, Maison du Danemark, Paris, FR
2021 Page at Petzel, Petzel Gallery, New York, US
2019 Metamorphosos. Art in Europe Now, Foundation Cartier, Paris, FR
2019 Salon de Peinture Muhka, Antwerpen, BE
2019 Ford Every Stream, Museo Apprente, Naples, IT
2018 Painting: Now & Forever, Part III. Greene Naftali, Matthew Marks, New York, US
2018 Helvedet opløser sig, Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen, DK
2018 Weeping, Dreaming, Fucking, Laughing, Wschod, Warsaw, PL
2017 Mystification of the Everyday, Delmes and Sander, Cologne, DE
2016 The Squatter, Gaudel de Stampa, Paris, FR
2016 To Lie in the Cheese, to Smile in the Butter, Kunstsaele, Berlin, DE
2016 Croissant, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/Main, DE
2016 Afgang, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK
2016 Hüttendasein, 15 Orient Ave., New York, US
2016 Cold Society No. 2, Galerie der Stadt Schwaz, AU
2015 Natural Instincts, Foundation Les Urbaines, Lausanne, CH
2015 Ajolly, Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt/Main, DE
2015 Ancient Carriers, Galerie Markus Lüttgen, Cologne, DE
2015 Times, Gallery Christian Andersen, Copenhagen, DK
2015 Six possibilities in painting, Galerie Bernhard, Zürich, CH
2014 Late European Decadence, Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt/Main, DE
2014 Im Frühling, Darling, Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg, DE
2013 Crema di Mente, Sala del Lazzaretto, Naples, IT
2013 Ligegyldigt hvorhen blot udenfor denne verden, Galleri Nicolai Wallner, DK
public collections
Collection European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, DE
Danish Arts Foundation, Copenhagen, DK
Lab’Bel, Suresnes, FR
Museum Sønderjylland, Tønder, DK
The New Carlsberg Foundation, Copenhagen, DK
SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, DK
bio
Born Elsinore, Denmark 1987
Lives and works in Copenhagen
Magnus Andersen draws abundantly from a wide range of art historical and popular cultural references, spanning Flemish still lifes,17th-century baroque and classical music, to color field painting and advertising aesthetics. Andersen renegotiates mundane and easily recognizable signifiers of contemporary visual culture and deliberately exaggerates them to a point of uncanniness. Cultivating humor and seriousness equally, his work engages with an accelerated nostalgia emblematic of post-industrial consumerism.