Michael Elmgreen (born 1961; Copenhagen, Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (born 1969; Trondheim, Norway) have worked together as an artist duo since 1995. Their work explores the relationship between art, architecture and design. Elmgreen & Dragset live and work in Berlin. They are known for art work that has wit and subversive humour, and also addresses social and cultural concerns.

Life and work

The duo met in Copenhagen in 1994, when Michael Elmgreen, who was born in the city in 1961, was writing and performing poetry, and Ingar Dragset, a Norwegian born in 1969, was studying theatre. They started collaborating in 1995 and moved to Berlin in 1997. In 2006, they bought a large 1000m2 former water-pumping station dating to 1924 in Berlin's Neukölln borough from the city and converted it into a studio. In 2008, Elmgreen moved to London, and in 2015, he moved back to Berlin. Since 1997, the artists have presented a great number of architectural and sculptural installations in an ongoing series of works entitled 'Powerless Structures' in which they transformed the conventions of the 'white cube' gallery space, creating galleries suspended from the ceiling, sunk into the ground or turned upside down. For the Istanbul Biennial in 2001, they constructed a full-scale model of a typical Modernist Kunsthalle descending into the ground while located outdoors among ancient ruins. Their work has also been shown in the Berlin, Istanbul, Liverpool, Moscow, São Paulo, Singapore, Gwangju Biennials. Further exhibitions include transforming the Bohen Foundation in New York into a 13th Street Subway Station in 2004; their best-known project Prada Marfa, a Prada boutique inaugurated in 2005 and sited in the middle of the Texan desert; and their exhibition The Welfare Show in 2005–2006 at Serpentine Gallery, London / The Power Plant, Toronto / Bergen Kunsthall, Norway / BAWAG Foundation, Vienna, which was critically acclaimed. For the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009 they curated the exhibition The Collectors in the neighbouring Danish and Nordic Pavilions (which include Norway, Sweden, and Denmark), an unprecedented merging of two international exhibition venues. For their show, they invited fellow artists Maurizio Cattelan, Tom of Finland, Han & Him, Laura Horelli, William E. Jones, Terence Koh, Klara Lidén, Jonathan Monk, Nico Muhly, Norway Says, Vibeke Slyngstad, Thora Dolven Balke, Nina Saunders, and Wolfgang Tillmans, among others. In 2011, their sculpture Powerless Structures, Fig. 101 was chosen as the winner of the Fourth Plinth Commission to be displayed on the Fourth plinth of London's Trafalgar Square. Their bronze sculpture of a boy astride a rocking horse questions the tradition for war monuments to celebrate either victory or defeat. The work is now permanently installed outside the Arken Museum of Modern Art. In 2013, they curated an extensive public art program in Munich entitled “A Space Called Public/Hoffentlich Öffentlich” and transformed the former textile galleries of the V & A Museum into the grand family home of fictional architect Norman Swann. Their exhibition series “Biography” took place in 2014–2015 at the Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo and the SMK–National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen. In 2015 their exhibition “Aéroport Mille Plateaux” turned the PLATEAU Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul into an airport inspired by the ideas of philosopher Gilles Deleuze. For their solo exhibition “The Well Fair” in 2016, the duo transformed the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing into a fictional art fair. Also in 2016, the artists installed Van Gogh's Ear at Rockefeller Center in New York; the 9-meter (30-foot) high, empty swimming pool stands upright on its shortest side. The artists’ first major overview in the UK, “This is How We Bite Our Tongue” was held at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 2018. The exhibition consisted of a large-scale site-specific installation and a survey of their sculptural works. The Whitechapel Pool, realised specifically for the show, transformed the ground floor of the gallery into an abandoned public swimming pool fictionally dated to 1901 and related to the gentrification of the East End of London. In 2019, Elmgreen & Dragset held their first major solo exhibition in the United States: “Sculptures” at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. Later that year, they installed a new public sculpture, “Bent Pool”, located in Miami Beach's Pride Park, which takes the shape of a large swimming pool arching backwards to form an inverted U shape. In Finland, the artist duo transformed the premises of EMMA – Espoo Museum of Art, into a surreal carpark environment for their exhibition “2020”, which coincided with the 25th year of Elmgreen & Dragset's collaboration. Later that year, “The Hive” was inaugurated at the new Moynihan Hall Train Hall in Penn Station, New York. Suspended from the ceiling, “The Hive” is an upside-down, fictional cityscape illuminated by lights that will hang permanently above the 31st Street Mid-block Entrance Hall in New York City. The following year, The Princess Estelle Cultural Foundation invited Elmgreen & Dragset to create a public sculpture for the Royal Djurgården Parks in Stockholm. “Life Rings”, a towering sculpture made up of interlocking, stainless steel life rings, now stands at 7.5 meters (25 ft) high by the waterside of the public park. In 2021, the artists also received the 14th Robert Jacobsen Prize from the Würth Foundation, in Künzelsau, Germany. To celebrate the award a solo exhibition was held at the collection's Würth Museum 2 in Künzelsau. More recently, Elmgreen & Dragset's extensive exhibition “Useless Bodies?” was held at Fondazione Prada in Milan through Spring and Summer of 2022. Spanning more than 3,000 square meters, the exhibition drew focus to the status of the human body in today's digitally saturated, post-industrial world, looking at our working conditions, living modes and the health and leisure industries. In winter 2022, the artist duo will open their forthcoming exhibition “After Dark” at By Art Matters Museum in Hangzhou, China.

Permanent installations

In 2003, Elmgreen & Dragset won the German Government's competition for a memorial in Tiergarten park in Berlin, in memory of the gay victims of the Nazi regime, which was unveiled in May 2008. Several of their sculptures are now permanently installed for the public including their commission for the Fourth plinth, now outside the Arken Museum of Modern Art; Prada Marfa (2005), on the U.S. Highway 90 in Texas; Dilemma, a site-specific sculpture of a boy on a high diving board overlooking a fjord on the outskirts of Oslo and Han, a polished steel sculpture of a young man on a rock located in the centre of the harbor in Helsingør, Denmark. Han was installed in 2012 and is based on Edvard Eriksen's famous The Little Mermaid (statue). The figure sits in a similar pose, challenging conventional portrayals of masculinity. In 2012 Elmgreen & Dragset were also selected for London's Fourth Plinth Commission in Trafalgar Square, where they created ''[https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/powerless-structures-fig-101-310259#:~:text='Powerless%20Structures%2C%20Fig.,the%20heroism%20of%20growing%20up. Powerless Structures, Fig. 101]''. Since then, Elmgreen & Dragset have realized: Van Gogh's Ear , first presented by Public Art Fund at the Rockefeller Center in 2016 and since exhibited with K11 Musea in Hong Kong and Wuhan; Bent Pool (2019) in Pride Park, Miami Beach; The Hive (2020), welcoming visitors to Moynihan Train Hall in Penn Station, New York; and most recently, Life Rings at Royal Djurgården, Stockholm (2021).

Performative works

In 2007, Elmgreen & Dragset developed Drama Queens, a theatre play about 20th-century art history with six remote-controlled versions of iconic sculptures, for Skulptur Projekte Münster. During the 2008 Frieze Art Fair, they staged Drama Queens, this time enlivened by the voices of leading stage stars such as Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes, at The Old Vic in London.

Other activities

In 2019, Dragset was a member of the jury that chose Lawrence Abu Hamdan for the Edvard Munch Art Award.

Recognition

Art market

Elmgreen & Dragset are represented by Pace Gallery (since 2020), Helga de Alvear, Kukje Gallery, Massimo De Carlo, Victoria Miro Gallery, Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Perrotin, and Taka Ishii Gallery. They previously worked with Johann König until 2022.

Solo exhibitions (selected)

2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997

Group exhibitions (selected)

2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

Collections

Elmgreen & Dragset's work is in the permanent collection of several museums across the world including:

Commissions

Catalogues

Gallery