During the summer 2019, CC presented a new project by FOS created specifically for the foyer at CC. It was an installation which, in terms of genre, belonged somewhere between installation, pavilion, arcade, and shop window.

The installation consisted of a simple framework of walls covered with wallpaper under a skylight roof and with a podium where art objects, fashion and design objects have been placed in the same way that a shop window displays its products.

FOS called this presentation a new ’genre figure’. By removing the project from the classic exhibition gallery and placing it in the CC foyer, a commercial space with reception, shop, and corridor space, FOS brought several different elements into play.

HANDS SMOOTH BY COINS examined the hierarchy and tension between the exhibition space and commercial shop windows. In contrast to the white exhibition space, where attention is dedicated entirely to the many aspects of the artworks, FOS’s presentation played with the commercial format of the shop window. The exhibited objects, each one a result of an artistic process, co-existed unregistered like products and the difference between art object and design object seemed to dissolve. This very aspect was emphasised by the fact that several objects, in their material and design, echo a previous exhibition.

FOS is internationally acclaimed for his uncompromising works of art, examining the boundary between art and design. In his practice, he chiefly sets out to examine how our physical surroundings and social relations influence one another. He frequently creates art for public spaces and hence social aspects shape the context in which FOS produces his works comprising both passive and active platforms where new social opportunities, encounters, activities, and experiences develop between people.

FOS (b. Thomas Poulsen 1971) lives and works in Copenhagen. His most important solo exhibitions include: Palimpsest — Hands Worn Smooth by Coins, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2019); /ˈpalɪm(p )sɛst/, Nils Stærk, Copenhagen (2018); Maggie Margaret lives, (part of Fig. 2, week 41), ICA Studio, London (2015); Koøje, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2015); Watchmaker, Max Wigram Gallery, London ( 2012); One Language Traveller, National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen (2011); Memory Theatre Twig!, GAK – Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen (2008). Permanent works include Interior, Marienborg, the Danish Prime Minister’s residence, Kgs. Lyngby (2019); Aur(0)a, Glamsbjerg (2019); The Interior of Inés, Vestre Fjordpark, Aalborg (2017); Your success is your amnesia, HF-centret Efterslægten, Copenhagen (2016); Interior, CÉLINE stores worldwide 2012-2018.