Michael Kvium’s solo exhibition "Shadow Theatre" opens today at Trapholt Museum of Modern Art and Design in Kolding and runs until 30 December 2025.
"With the exhibition Shadow Theatre, Michael Kvium invites the audience into a distinctive and unsettling universe populated by 36 figurative performers. Painted over 17 years – from 2008 to 2025 – the works form a collective tableau of humanity’s darker sides and the absurdities of contemporary life. In an image space functioning as a visual stage, Kvium unfolds a critical, sensuous, and deeply reflective diagnosis of our times.
Each figure in the shadow theatre acts as a player in the “theatre of life” – grotesque, tragicomic, and theatrical. They mirror what we would rather not see: our vanity, intolerance, hunger for power, and existential fragility. Inspired by classical theatre, satire, and grotesque painting, Kvium confronts us with the imperfect and unvarnished human being.
The shadow – both as a visual effect and a symbol – plays a central role. It represents the hidden, the repressed, and the human darkness. Through it, Kvium does not render moral judgment but opens up space for reflection and recognition. His figures become mirrors in which we may see ourselves – in all that we try to hide.
With Shadow Theatre, art becomes a space for contemplation and resistance against the superficiality of our times. The exhibition draws threads to selfie culture, identity quests, political polarization, and ecological alienation – not with answers, but with open questions. For Kvium, art is not something to be consumed, but something to be confronted by. Something that makes room to see more deeply – into the artwork, the world, and ourselves.
The exhibition brings together, for the first and only time, the entire series, created in collaboration with 12 private collectors in the joint ownership group Think Bigger. It is a unique opportunity to experience the full scope of Michael Kvium’s grand visual universe, where each figure plays its role in a theatrical and thought-provoking shadow theatre."
