HUMBLEBÆK, DENMARK.- The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art presents today “The Wessel Bagge Collection,” on view through 8 February 2004. From the Niels Wessel Bagge Art Foundation Louisiana has taken over a unique collection consisting primarily of Pre-Columbian cultural artefacts from North, South and Central America – that is, Amerindian arts and crafts from the time before the European colonization that began around 1500, as well as objects from Africa, New Guinea and ancient Europe. The collection – one of the largest of its kind in Denmark – was created by the Dane Niels Wessel Bagge (1908-1990), who after an international career as an actor, dancer, choreographer and stage designer settled down in California and over three decades built up a large private art collection. It is the ethnographic part of the Wessel Bagge Collection that has now found a home at Louisiana. 

Art from foreign cultures played an important role for the modern art of the 20th century, and these ethnographica, both as individual artefacts and through their links with modern works, have crucially expanded our artistic universe and our visual responsiveness in general. A long succession of exhibitions at the museum over the years has demonstrated this, and Louisiana sees this donation as an important enrichment of the museum. 

The objects in the collection can be divided up in terms of cultures and geographical origin into four main groups: Amerindian artefacts from the southwestern USA and northern Mexico, that is from early North American cultures such as the Anasazi, Hohokam and Mogollon and some of the tribes that later separated out from these: the Hopi, Zuni, Acona, Laguna, Navajo and Apache cultures; the Mesoamerican cultures, that is those from most of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize, which for millennia made up a loosely interrelated cultural area best known today for the great high cultures of the Olmec, Toltec, Maya and Aztec peoples; the Andes area with a number of artefacts from c. 200 BC to c. 1600 AD – that is the early cultures of the Vicus, Moche and Nazca, the so-called Late Intermediate period with the Ica, Chimu and Chancay kingdoms; and finally the Inca empire, which from the mid-1400s gathered the whole widespread area together. At the exhibition it will further be possible to see a more composite group consisting of the collection’s objects from among other places Africa, China and the Mediterranean area. 

Biography - Niels Wessel Bagge was born on 25th October 1908. His family belonged to the upper middle class in Copenhagen; his father, August Bagge, was a director at the publishing house Gyldendal, while his mother Holga was the daughter of Theodor Wessel, who along with Emil Vett founded the department store Magasin du Nord. The young Bagge could have followed this path, but instead chose to exchange his privileges for a quite different kind of life – a nomadic life in the fast track, a modern life with several careers, marriage (to the world-famous Hungarian opera diva Gitta Alpar) and divorce, friends and lovers and a huge network of contacts over most of the planet. 

On his journey through the century he spent extended periods in metropoles like Berlin, London, Paris and Hollywood, where he frequented the social circles that set the cultural and aesthetic agenda of the new age. As a dancer, graphic artist and choreographer Niels Wessel Bagge showed a decided talent and enjoyed professional success in his younger years. However, it was as a passionate collector that he finally realized himself with an unerring aesthetic sense and feeling for quality. 

Catalogue (only in Danish) - With support from the Niels Wessel Bagge Art Foundation, Louisiana has published the work Niels Wessel Bagge og hans samling (‘Niels Wessel Bagge and his Collection’) by the art historian Hanne Pedersen, mag. art. In this book one can find a more extensive treatment of the biography and the whole Wessel Bagge Collection. The book is available from the museum bookshop. 

Lectures in the Concert Hall (only in Danish) - On 19th November at 7.30 p.m. the author Ib Michael will talk, under the heading “Det rygende spejl” (‘The Smoking Mirror’) about the Pre-Columbian high cultures and about his own encounter with a number of the places involved, and with the descendants of among others the Maya.  

On 21st January at 7.30 p.m. the two authors of the book Det urolige blod – biografi om Frans Blom (‘Restless Blood – a biography of Frans Blom’), Tore Leifer from the Danish broadcasting corporation DR, and the Maya expert Jesper Nielsen from the University of Copenhagen, will talk in the lecture “Fra tempel til museumsmontre – Wessel Bagges præcolumbianske samling” (‘From temple to museum showcase – Wessel Bagge’s Pre-Columbian Collection’) about the striking parallels between Niels Wessel Bagge and Denmark’s great Maya archaeologist Frans Blom (1893-1963), who came from the same haut-bourgeois milieu and had the same wanderlust. In Blom’s case it took him to the Mexican jungle and led to archaeological expeditions in unknown regions. In addition they will talk about the Amerindian high cultures of the Maya and the Aztecs and their flourishing before the Spanish conquest.  

The exhibition has been organized by curator Kirsten Degel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, and designed by exhibition architect Anne Schnettler Kristensen. DONG is the principal sponsor of Louisiana’s exhibitions in 2001-2005.