1. Arearea no Varua Ino. The Amusement of the Evil Spirit, 1894, Paul Gauguin, MIN 1832 © Glyptoteket
The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen is known for its important collection of 19th-century French art. One of its major strengths is its group of works by Paul Gauguin, one of the most well-known and controversial artists of that time. In the exhibition “Gauguin & Kihara – First Impressions”, the museum is presenting these works in a new dialogue.
Instead of showing Gauguin’s art as a finished story, the Glyptotek opens a conversation. This is made possible by a new acquisition: a video by Yuki Kihara, a Japanese-Sāmoan contemporary artist who is part of the fa’afafine community in Sāmoa. Through her artwork, she responds to Gauguin’s images from her own point of view and background. Her video allows visitors to hear from people who are often left out of the history of Western art.
This exhibition is not only about Gauguin. It is also about how museums can rethink their collections, include new voices, and deal with difficult parts of the past. It invites the public to ask new questions about the art they see and about how we tell stories in museums.
The French Art collection at the Glyptotek
2. J Vahine no te Tiare. Woman with the Flower, 1891, Paul Gauguin, MIN 1828 © Glyptoteket
The Glyptotek was founded in 1888 by Carl Jacobsen, a wealthy Danish brewer who collected art and believed it should be shared with the public. From the beginning, he focused on building strong collections of both ancient art and modern European art. French painting and sculpture played a central role in this vision.
Today, the museum owns over 50 works by Paul Gauguin. These include paintings, drawings, wood sculptures, and ceramics, is one of the largest collections of his work outside France. The museum also holds important works by Degas, Monet, Manet, Cézanne, and Rodin and together, these artists show the changes in French art in the second half of the 19th century, from Impressionism to Symbolism and beyond.
Gauguin’s work at the Glyptotek has been the subject of much interest. Over the years, his pieces have been lent to major museums and exhibitions around the world, but the way we understand Gauguin has changed. In the past, he was praised for his bold use of color, his original style, and his choice to live in “exotic” places, and today, people are more aware of the colonial background of his travels and of the unequal power relations between Gauguin and the people he painted, especially women in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands.
The Glyptotek’s new presentation of its Gauguin collection reflects this shift. It does not avoid difficult questions, instead, it offers more context, more voices, and new ways of looking at familiar works with the addition of Yuki Kihara’s video is an important step in this direction.
Yuri Kihara's response
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3. First Impressions Paul Gauguin, 2018, Yuki Kihara (1975-) © Courtesy of Yuki Kihara, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen and Milford Galle
The exhibition “Gauguin & Kihara – First Impressions” is organized in two separate but connected parts. In one part of the galleries, the museum shows its large collection of works by Paul Gauguin and in another room, visitors can view Yuki Kihara’s video First Impressions: Paul Gauguin. The artworks are not displayed together. This curatorial choice gives each artist space to be understood on their own terms and invites visitors to compare and reflect as they move through the exhibition.
The room dedicated to Gauguin focuses on the artist’s long search for what he called “authentic” places to live and work. The display includes paintings, woodcarvings, drawings, and ceramics, which together show how his style changed over time and how his travels shaped his art. The exhibition covers his years in France, including Paris, Brittany, and Arles as well as his stays in French colonies like Martinique, Tahiti, and the Marquesas Islands.
The artworks chosen for the exhibition highlight some of Gauguin’s most common subjects. These include portraits of young women, often painted in Tahiti, landscapes of tropical environments, and scenes of daily life imagined or observed during his time in the Pacific, many of these works are well known for their bold colors, stylized figures, and symbolic meaning. The display also includes religious or mythological themes that Gauguin created by combining Christian and Polynesian elements.
The museum’s presentation gives visitors background on the historical, political, and social conditions behind these images. It shows how Gauguin used local people, places, and traditions in his work but often ignored their actual meaning and context. The exhibition explains that Gauguin’s work was shaped not just by personal imagination, but also by colonial power structures; he lived in places under French rule, and the way he portrayed people, especially women, reflected both fascination and misunderstanding of their culture.
In a separate gallery space, Yuki Kihara’s video “First Impressions: Paul Gauguin” offers a different kind of experience. Rather than showing more artworks, the video presents a conversation as it is filmed as a talk show, where a host and several guests look at reproductions of Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings, including some from the Glyptotek’s own collection. The guests are fa’afafine and fa’atama—members of gender-diverse communities in Sāmoa similar to the māhū in Tahiti.
The participants give their immediate reactions to the paintings. Their comments are personal and direct ans some of them speak about how the women in the paintings are shown. Others wonder who they were and how they might have felt about being painted. Some of the panelists imagine the models’ stories and question what Gauguin may have missed or misunderstood. The conversation includes both humor and serious reflections on colonial history, gender identity, and cultural stereotypes.
Placing the video in a separate room emphasizes the difference between looking at historical artworks in silence and hearing present-day voices respond to them. The two parts of the exhibition are linked by subject, and visitors are encouraged to move between them and compare what they see with what they hear. This design makes it clear that the exhibition is not only about Paul Gauguin’s art, it is also about how that art is seen today, and whose perspectives have been missing from the conversation until now.
By including Kihara’s work in its collection and exhibition, the Glyptotek is doing more than adding a new piece of art. It is also sending a message about how museums can change. For many years, Western museums have shown works from colonized parts of the world without including the voices of the people who were represented. Now, there is growing pressure to do better, to give space to artists and communities who can speak for themselves.
This exhibition is an example of how that can be done. Kihara is not just commenting on Gauguin. She is actively part of the museum’s collection and programming; her voice is treated with the same respect as Gauguin’s.
It also shows that collections do not have to stay the same, even when museums cannot return objects or change their history, they can create new meanings by inviting people in, artists like Kihara can offer different perspectives, and visitors can learn more when they hear more than one story.
Biographies
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903)
Gauguin was born in Paris and began his career in finance before becoming a full-time artist. He was part of the Impressionist circle but later developed a unique style based on simplified forms, bold colors, and symbolic content. He traveled to French colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific in search of inspiration. In Tahiti and the Marquesas, he produced many of his most famous works, but he also engaged in relationships with very young girls and participated in colonial structures. His legacy is complex and debated today.
Yuki Kihara (born 1975)
Yuki Kihara is a Japanese-Sāmoan interdisciplinary artist based in Sāmoa. Her work includes video, performance, photography, sculpture, and curating. She explores topics such as gender identity, colonialism, and representation in the Pacific. She identifies as fa’afafine and often works with other members of gender-diverse communities. In 2022, she represented Aotearoa New Zealand at the Venice Biennale with her project Paradise Camp. Her work is held in major collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Glyptoteket
Date: 8.5.2025 – 6.12.2026
Ticket: Available at the front desk of the museum
Glyptoteket
Glyptoteket
Dantes Plads 7
1556 Copenhagen
Phone: +45 33 41 81 41
Mail: info@glyptoteket.dk