Join us when Copenhagen Contemporary and Glyptoteket jointly open the exhibition ‘The song is the call and the land is calling’ with the Palestinian artist duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme. Through visually spectacular multimedia installations, the exhibition highlights the deep connection that exists between heritage and identity, tracing stories of collective resilience through different times and places. Through poetry and political thought, Abbas and Abou-Rahme unfold stories of belonging, community and self-determination where experiences of loss, violence and displacement loom large.
The exhibition takes place at CC and the Glyptotek simultaneously and presents a number of the artists’ main works as well as a brand new work created specifically based on the museum’s ancient collection.

About the exhibition
The exhibition The song is the call and the land is calling, takes place in the borderland between annihilation and return, loss and resistance, colonial histories and the hope for new social realities. With a focus on the right to life and self-determination of oppressed peoples, Abbas and Abou-Rahme explore how stories of collective resistance resonate in human history and contemporary cultures. The artists themselves describe their work as resistance poetry that engages in rereading, revisiting, rethinking and reformulating not only the historiographies of the past, but also the present moment.

About Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
Basel Abbas (born 1983, Cyprus) and Ruanne Abou-Rahme (born 1983, USA) have collaborated as a duo since 2007. They have presented solo exhibitions at art institutions such as MIT List Visual Arts Center (2024), Astrup Fearnley Museum (2023); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2022); Common Guild, Glasgow (2022); Art Institute of Chicago (2021); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2020) and Kunstverein, Hamburg (2018). Their work has been exhibited at major international biennials such as the Sharjah Biennial (2023, 2015); Berlin Biennial (2022); Busan Biennial (2018); Gwangju Biennial and São Paulo Biennial (both 2014), Istanbul Biennial (2013), Liverpool Biennial (2010) and Venice Biennale (2009). They have received the Sharjah Biennial Prize in 2015 and The Abraaj Prize in 2016. Their latest release And Yet Amy Mask Is Powerful was published by Printed Matter in New York in 2017.

About the collaboration
Hosting Histories – Revisiting Cultural Heritage of the Middle East and Beyond is a three-year collaboration between the Glyptotek and Copenhagen Contemporary, using international contemporary art to revisit the cultural heritage of antiquity and its significance today. In the period 2023-2025, two individual artists and an artist duo will each create a solo exhibition that relates to the Glyptotek’s ancient collections and is hosted by both art institutions at the same time.

The three-year exhibition program at CC and Glyptoteket is generously supported by:
The Obel Family Foundation
The exhibition at Copenhagen Contemporary is further supported by
A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal
The exhibition at Glyptoteket is further supported by
The New Carlsberg Foundation, Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond, Sportsgoodsfonden and Statens Kunstfond

Program og praktik

Ligesom udstillingen foregår fejringen på både Glyptoteket og CC.

På Glyptoteket

Kl. 14-16 Smugkig i udstillingen for CC’s medlemmer og Glyptotekets årskortholdere – dagen før kan du som medlem eller årkortholder opleve udstillingen på CC : CC PREVIEW

Kl. 16.00 Udstillingen åbner. Fri entré til Glyptoteket
Kl. 16.30 Gratis velkomstøl I festsalen
Kl.17.00 Velkomst v/direktør Gertrud Hvidberg-Hansen
Kl. 17.15 Artist talk med Basel Abbas og Ruanne Abou-Rahme v/kuratorer Anna Kærsgaard Gregersen, Glyptoteket og Aukje Lepoutre Ravn, CC

På Copenhagen Contemporary

Kl. 18.00 Fri entré til CC
Kl. 19.00 Velkomst v/direktør Marie Laurberg på CC
Kl. 20.15 Kollektiv digtoplæsning faciliteret af Elijah Kashmir: If I must die
Kl. 20.30 Performance ved Makimakkuk
Kl. 22.00 Udstillingen lukker
Kl. 22.00 DJ
Kl. 23.00 Tak for i aften

Særligt for CC medlemmer og Glyptotekets årskortholdere
Helt unikt er der for Glyptotekets årskortholdere og Copenhagen Contemporarys medlemmer mulighed et smugkig i udstillingerne før den officielle åbning. Dette finder sted på:
Copenhagen Contemporary: onsdag 12. juni kl. 15-18
Glyptoteket: torsdag 13. juni kl. 14-16

Pris og billet
I anledningen af udstillingsåbningen er der fri entré til Glyptoteket fra kl. 16. Der er et begrænset antal pladser i Festsalen. Der er ligeledes fri entré til Copenhagen Contemporary fra kl. 18.

Er du forhindret på dagen har du stadig mulighed for at se begge udstillinger til favorabelpris eller ved brug af dit medlemskort til enten Glyptoteket eller CC.

Årskortholdere/medlemmer kan besøge begge institutioner gratis i hele udstillingsperioden.

Almindelige gæster kan ved at fremvise billet til det ene sted, få 20 % rabat på billet det andet sted.