The museum as a trench - Interweaving hegemony and subversion at the National Gallery of Denmark

JORGENSEN, IDA LUNDE; STARICCO, JUAN IGNACIO

Copenhague

Conferencia; Marx Now 2020; 2020

Copenhagen Business School

This paper examines the contested process of national identity formation that is currently taking place against a background of intense political debate surrounding immigration and belonging. Grounded in a visual analysis of two artworks exhibited at a national museum in Denmark, the paper illustrates how the subversive interweaving of art creates counter-narratives, which subtly but profoundly change the meaning of the hegemonic ones. In doing so, it becomes apparent how strong national myths of a fair nation are transformed to allude to dark sides such as the exclusion of ethnic and cultural difference. We contribute to the field of Marxist studies by complementing a historically inclined neo-institutional approach with Gramscian theory of hegemony and visual methods of analysis, inspired by Ferguson, Barthes, and Panofsky, to attend to the contestation of myth and national identity through the strategic exhibition of art.