Dimensions of Freedom. Carl-Henning Pedersen and Else Alfelt

23.05. – 25.10.2026

With Dimensions of Freedom, the Kunsthalle St. Annen is dedicating the first comprehensive exhibition to the work of Else Alfelt and Carl-Henning Pedersen, two central figures in European postwar modernism and important representatives of the CoBrA movement.

More than 150 works from four decades trace the development of a visual language that emerged from resistance, radical artistic empowerment and collective creativity. The exhibition explores the different dimensions of freedom, from artistic practice to political and social engagement to spiritual innovation.

The encounter between Else Alfelt and Carl-Henning Pedersen marked the beginning of an intense artistic and personal partnership. Both turned against academic traditions early on and joined the avant-garde artist groups Høst and Helhesten, which actively opposed Nazi ideology during the German occupation of Denmark and showed solidarity with the ostracized positions of so-called “degenerate art.”

In 1948, both artists became part of the international CoBrA movement, which, in the wake of the traumas of World War II, advocated art that transcended social and academic constraints. As a founding member, Pedersen had a lasting influence on the movement with his gestural, expressive style, which was influenced by Northern mythology, folklore, and children's drawings. Alfelt, on the other hand, remained true to her own visual and formal language. Her works translate nature, spirituality, and cosmic ideas into reduced and crystalline pictorial spaces of mountains, moons, and suns that deliberately differed from the aesthetics of CoBrA.

For decades, Alfelt's work remained in the shadow of her male colleagues. Recurring sexist attributions and structural exclusion exemplify the precarious position of female artists within the supposedly progressive and avant-garde networks of post-war modernism.

This makes the couple's artistic relationship, which was characterized by mutual influence and support, all the more significant today. Pedersen repeatedly emphasized Alfelts' fundamental role in his own turn to the visual arts. International stays in Iceland, Italy, India, and Japan, among other places, broadened their range of motifs and led to continuous formal and thematic transformations. The exhibition concludes with Pedersen's late work, which, after Alfelt's death, drew on this artistic connection for more than three decades while also reflecting on it.

The exhibition is of particular historical and cultural significance for the Kunsthalle St. Annen. With its focus on German and Scandinavian postwar art and its geographical location in the German-Danish border region, the presentation also sees itself as an expression of the historical and cultural intertwining of both countries. The exhibition thus also becomes a statement for cross-border cultural cooperation, an idea that is deeply rooted in the work of both artists.

The first large-scale international retrospective was developed in collaboration with the Carl-Henning Pedersen Foundation, its chairman Finn Poulsen, the former director of the ARKEN Museum Christian Gether, and the Institute for Cultural Exchange.

Accompanying the exhibition is a multifaceted educational program that views the exhibition as an open space for thought and experience. Multilingual tours, workshops, and participatory formats in the exhibition are designed to break down barriers and open up new perspectives on questions of freedom, creativity, and collective practice.

Vernissage: 22.05.2026 | 7:00 pm