why don’t you shut it?
adam christensen
31 may–6 july 2024
Why don’t you shut it?
Adam Christensen
In memory of Lene, mare liberum
Of the very many lies we learn as children, that we haven’t got wings is one of the first. It is a lie that pulls us away from the visionary state childhood shares with the numinous angel—that time-warping light-bearing emissary of divine hermaphroditic unity—and pushes us towards adulthood, where the desire to fly meets a refusal to do so.
The artist, in the ‘truest’ sense (of messenger) somehow retains access to this original liminal space of play, and delivers something from it. They sit at the sill as the angel, or as Janus (the two-faced latchkey Roman God of transitions), not necessarily seeing both East and West at once—both beginning and end—but feeling both profoundly: the latibule’s stove’s caress, and time’s gradual knead and knubble of wet salt wind outside. Genius is accessed (but never possessed) by the true artist in their ability to balance and communicate these dualities, to say something of what we all know, and will come to know, which cannot be spoken.
Adam Christensen’s fabrics are embroidered and fall at this threshold. Keep the draught out. They can be seen from both sides. You, reader, are of course a visitor at palace enterprise, and witness stillness in the fabric hanging between bleached gallery walls, but I dare say you feel its swaying: courted by the moon and the ocean, a portière cut in memory’s ferruginous palette for the bardo-boudoir at envy’s maiden’s tower top. Smoke from the chimney of the crossing boat below teases that secret room, wherein Adam and his mother, Lene, sit with a deck of cards and a record player (and a stack of her old favourite twelve-inches).
Mother and son look out through the sheer veil he’s stitched her image into and out of, and onto the dividing line of the Baltic Sea meeting, but never mixing, with the North Sea, at Grenen, the tides unknowing in a never-ending state of kiss.
Lost in the presentation of the real world, Lene finds herself again in the far outer reaches of The Beatles’ catalogue. Tomorrow Never Knows. ‘Or play the game “Existence” to the end, of the beginning,’ she sings along with John. She may not always remember Adam, but she always loves him. Into her mouth goes the Queen of Spades in an attempted game of Solitaire. ‘Moder, no.’ But this subversion is also to seer: another game (of fortune) says that this card represents endings, but new beginnings too; the divine feminine, the matriarch.
Shut it . . . for it is obviously bullshit to talk about new beginnings when you’ve lost or you are losing a loved one. A mother, no less. But worlds have ended and are ending often. Adam’s most recent moving image work paid devastating tribute to the passing of his other mom, Lise, in 2020. Born in Aylesbury in 1979 (his father, largely absent, died in mysterious circumstances in Hong Kong, also in 2020), Adam lived in Vejen (‘The Way’) with his two mothers from the age of 3 to 20. Lene’s family had resided there for generations, but she left for a more central city location with Lise gone. Throughout her life, she suffered from a neurological disorder significantly increasing the chances of developing dementia. Adam and his sister have the same condition. It is thought to be less a matter of if than when.
What was first believed to be the onset of dementia in Lene was found to be cancer of the brain metastasised from the stomach. The work on show here was conceived and created in the room occupied by Adam and Lene, which she left on 18 May 2024. In sharing this I do not parrot the shameful tendency of present time kultur to cite trauma or grief as narrative devices to ascribe market value. I won’t do it. I don’t need to. Adam’s art sings, no matter the forensics of his suffering or his joy. I reference it to highlight the specific intensity underpinning a mother and a son’s shared experience of a savage and dazzling world, and how much responsibility Lene’s care—her consistency, her steadiness, her occasional smashing of all of her favourite plates—must have borne and continue to bear on Adam’s vantage point; his artistic flair. What you see in this exhibition is a consequence of harvesting his memory, confronted by the sudden absence of hers.
The fall Adam describes is less ornate than that of the angel-child. He was expelled by Lene from the ladies’ sauna for ‘going yank-yank’ on the nipples of strangers, condemned then to the men’s room (and the rest, as the saying goes, is history). He remembers his first jealousies in the royal dress of a little girl at a music festival, and the magnificent threat of sex in the stench of an attending biker and his topless moll. If this child was ever lied to, it occurs to me that he was lied to less, and I know that one of his many virtues—you bear witness to it in this show—is his inability to lie to us. Wings? I ask him, to which he exhales, as though to say a sultry ‘maybe’ with eyes that add: but what use for this Princess, what use for this son?
By Stanley Schtinter
education
2004–2007 BA Hons Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
2002–2003 The European Film College, Ebeltoft, DK
upcoming
2025 Taxi Club, Copenhagen, DK (performance)
2025 Grønningen, Den Frie, Copenhagen, DK (group)
2026 Gammel Strand, Copenhagen, DK (group)
solo exhibitions
*catalog
2025 LISTE art fair, Basel, CH
2025 Is That All You’ve Got?, Huset for Kunst og Design, Holstebro, DK
2024 I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Horsens Art Museum, Horsens, DK
2024 why don’t you shut it?, palace enterprise, Copenhagen, DK
2023 Bedtime, Tønder Art Museum, Tønder, DK*
2023 Lise, Haus N Off-Site, Athens, GRE
2022 The Wind Swallowed My Words, Hunt Kastner, Prague, CZ
2022 You Might Wanna Stay Over, w/ Ursula Reuter Christiansen, Rønnebæksholm, Næstved, DK
2021 Küss mich, bevor du gehst, Kunstverein Harbuger Bahnhof, Hamborg, DE
2020 The beauty about antisocial behaviour is that it takes you away from other people, however briefly, Futura, Prague, CZ
2019 I’m not done with you yet, Goldsmiths CCA, London, UK
2019 Criminal Longing 3, Almanac Projects, London, UK
2018 Shitty Heartbreaker, O–Overgaden Kunsthalle, Copenhagen, DK
2017 You Don’t Treat Me Like You Should, Almanac Projects, OuterSpace, Milan, IT
2016 2 Late 2 Talk part two, OUTPOST Gallery, Norwich, UK
2016 If He’s Innocent, He’s Really Fucked, Queen Adelaide, London, UK
2015 Art Show, Maison Maca, Athens, GRE
2015 Why can’t we just enjoy it the wat it is?, Artes, Porto, PT
2014 Its raining btw x, Southard Reid, London, UK
2010 My heart forgot to leap when you looked at me, Rachmanioff’s, London, UK
group exhibitions
2025 Needle & Thread, Sorø Art Museum, Sorø, DK
2025 Denne Nye Verden – overvejende Tekstil, Lundsgaard Gods, Kerteminde, DK
2024 Needle & Thread, Art Museum Brandts, Odense, DK
2024 25, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg, DE
2024 The Vejen Way To Art, Vejen Art Museum, Vejen, DE
2023 Forms of The Surrounding Futures, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Göteborg, SE
2023 X A CAPUTAL DESIRE, Le Bicolore, Paris, FR
2023 Woke Up Feeling Better, Staffordshire St, London, UK
2022 Kunstnerkolonien På Sydfyn, Faaborg Kunstmuseum, Faaborg, DK
2021 Too Much (too little, too late), Glasgow International, Glasgow, UK
2021 Valentine Special, Romika TV, (online)
2020 Ghosthouse, Den Frie, Copenhagen, DK
2020 Underneath, The Nordic House, Reykjavik, IS
2020 Máscaras (Masks), Galaria Minicipal do Porto, Porto, PT
2020 Sets and Scenarios, Royal College of Art, Nottingham Comtemporary, (online)
2019 You’re In My Veins, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus, DK
2018 Give Up The Ghost, Baltic Triennial 13, Vilnius/Tallin/Riga
2018 We Are Having A Little Flirt, Pump House Gallery, London, UK
2018 Cryptopian States, Cycle Music and Art Festival, Berlin, DE
2018 Staging Realities 1, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg, DE
2017 When My Eyes Saw And When My Ears Heard, Hollybush Gardens, London, UK
2017 Beauty and Room, Palp Festival, Sion, CH
2017 56 Artillery Lane, w/ Keira Fox, Raven Row, London, UK
2016 Planned Obsolescence, Muscovite Gymnasium, Moscow, RF
2015 I am here, but you’ve gone, Fiorucci Art Trust and Creative Perfumers, London, UK
2014 Feeling Queezy, EKKM, Tallinn, EE
2014 Forget Amnesia, Fiorucci Art Trust, Stromboli, IT
2014 Je suis Féministre, Unit 21, Penarth Centre, London, UK
2014 Terminos, LimaZulu, London, UK
2013 One Day the Day Will Come When the Day Will Not Come, Futura, Prague, CZ
2013 Lutz Kinoy’s Loose Bodies, Elain, MGK, Basel, CH
2013 Nestbeschmutzer, Southard Reid, London, UK
2012 Soundworks, ICA, London, UK (online)
2012 She Doesn’t Care, EB&Flow Gallery, London, UK
2012 Artist Urban Action, Enclave, London, UK
2012 Group Show, Rachmaninoff’s Smith/Arnett, London, UK
2011 Film i Samtidskonsten, Bio Rio, Stockholm, SE
2011 Facts and Systems: A Science Fair, 120 East Road, London, UK
2010 i modi, Benderspace, Bermonsey, London, UK
2009 Sexually Motivated, South London Cultural Centre, London, UK
2008 Think Again, Rachmanioff’s London, UK
2008 Annual Members’ Exhibition, Studio Voltaire, London, UK
performances
2025 GARGLE, Sadie Coles HQ, London, UK
2025 Interval #1, La Fabra Centre d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona, ES
2025 Screening, Christiania Biennale, Copenhagen, DK
2025 Cafe OTO, London, UK
2025 Augend&Addend, Vienna, AT
2025 Liste Art Fair, Basel, CH
2024 Home Live Art, Shoreditch Town Hall, UK
2024 Performissima, Le Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles / Paris, Paris, FR
2024 Somerset House, London, UK
2023 September Sessions, Stockholm, SE
2023 Damascus Copenhagen, Fetish Shop, Vilnius Biennial, Vilnius, LT
2023 10 Year Party, Almanac, Turin, IT
2023 Subset 2, SET Woolwich, London, UK
2023 Kulturpris, Kulturpriser, Vordingborg, DK
2022 Lyra Pramuk and Adam Christensen, Valby Kulturhus, Valby, DK
2022 NIGHTHAWKS: A G.L.I.T.S. Fundraiser on International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, Ormside Projects, London, UK
2022 Feature, iklektik, London, UK
2022 Warm Little Pond x Sans Souci, Salon 75, Copenhagen, DK
2022 The Ladies Club, w/ Keira Fox, Sodas 2123, Vilnius, LT
2022 Stranger Gentle presents… Two Nights of Unlearning, Horse Hospital, London, UK
2022 FuturShock, Fold, London, UK
2022 FRIEND, Pfeil Magazine 16 Launch, Montez Press, London, UK
2022 Iconoclast, Todmorden, UK
2022 Yaga Gathering, Varėna, LT
2022 S_ex_Clu_b, Wharf Chambers, Leeds, UK
2022 Cars don’t talk back, Institut Funder Bakke, Silkeborg, DK
2022 Earth Hackney, London, UK
2021 Performance Festival: Resonance & Wonder, with Deniz Unal, O–Overgarden Kunsthalle, Copenhagen, DK
2021 Adam Christensen & Deniz Unal, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, DK
2021 Badesøen Festival, Albertslund, DK
2021 Mo.Co., Montpelier, US
2020 Confessions: Making a Performance of Yourself, Jerwood Art Space, London, UK
2020 Anarchy 99+ XCRSWX + Adam Christensen, Café Otto, London, UK
2019 Sweet Surrender, OGR, Torino, IT
2019 I wanna be lonely, Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmunder, DE
2019 It’s a lot like life, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2019 Beatrice Gibson/Crone Music, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
2019 Reacción A Islandia, Pavilion Nordico, Buenos Aires, AR
2018 DRAG, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
2018 ERROR, Pfeil Magazine 9, Montez Press, Hamburg, DE
public collections
Horsens Art Museum, Horsens, DK
Museum Sønderjylland, Tønder, DK
The New Carlsberg Foundation, Copenhagen, DK
Danish Arts Foundation, DK
awards & grants
2023 Inger Goldmanns Fond, DK
2022 Aage & Yelva Nimbs Foundation honorary scholarship, DK
2021 Work scholarship (3 years), the Danish Arts Foundation, DK
2020 Work scholarship, the Danish Arts Foundation, DK
2019 Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Artist Award, London, UK
2006 Hamad Butt Fine Art Award, Goldsmiths College, UK
projects
2022 Kunstnerkolonien, television, season 3, DRTV, DK
2012 Ectopia, music project with Jack Brennan and Vicky Steiri
2011 Hotel Garderobe, cinema club and event space, George Tingle House, London, UK
2008 Eyes Of Blood, erotic thriller video project with Sidsel Christensen
2008–2009 South London Cultural Centre in association with Spartacus Chetwynd, Vicky Steiri, Aki Ilomaki and Urara Tsuchiya
bio
Born 1979, Vejen, Denmark
Lives and works in London, UK
Adam Christensen is a multidisciplinary artist based in London, whose work is primarily realized through textiles, music, and installation, blurring the boundaries between everyday life and fiction. Based on his immediate experiences, colored by the theatricality of every day, the spectacle of domesticity, chance encounters, and emotional and physical dramas, Christensen conveys these experiences through his performances. A primary concern of Christensen’s practice is the construction and representation of space, and what ‘activates’ that space – the unfolding narrative of heartbreak, desire, memory, and identity. He forms a ‘stage’ from which he interacts with the audience and can edit the narrative, often by singing with the accordion and reading short stories, adding layers to a story in a process of continuous development.