Kvadrat supports Get close enough and you can’t see, Norwegian-Nigerian artist Frida Orupabo’s first solo exhibition in Denmark at Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg. Presenting her largest installation to date, the project features Hero 2 in a textile installation that runs throughout the space.

Created specifically for Alvar Aalto’s museum architecture, the exhibition brings together new collage works within a labyrinthine setting. Visitors move among fragmented figures and images, encountering works that challenge the relationship between the viewer and the viewed. With no single vantage point offering a complete overview, the installation unfolds through movement and shifting perspectives. Orupabo draws on historical and colonial archives, popular culture and the internet to explore questions of race, identity, gender and class. By cropping, manipulating and reassembling found images, she creates new narratives that challenge the power structures embedded in their original contexts.

The exhibition’s title reflects the tension between proximity and perspective. Getting closer to a fragment can reveal detail while obscuring the wider image, inviting reflection on how we see and interpret people, histories and identities.

Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg
Kong Christians Allé 50
9000 Aalborg
Denmark

8 October 2026 – 9 May 2027
Tuesday, 10 am - 5 pm
Wednesday – Thursday, 10 am - 9 pm
Friday – Sunday, 10 am - 5 pm

About Frida Orupabo

Frida Orupabo trained as a sociologist and is a self-taught artist based in Oslo. In 2013, she began sharing her digital collages on the Instagram account @nemiepepa, which functioned as a kind of digital diary and personal image archive. In 2017, her work was discovered by American artist and filmmaker Arthur Jafa. He invited Orupabo to participate in an exhibition at Serpentine Galleries in London. This became a turning point.

Since then, her collages have moved from the screen into the exhibition space in the form of, among other things, life-sized figures, sculptures, video works and installations.

About Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg

Kunsten is a living art museum allowing space for immersion, wonder and fascination. The museum houses a unique collection comprising over 4000 works of art, mostly post-1900, by Danish and foreign artists.

The exhibition area consists of five galleries providing visitors with ample opportunity to experience the permanent collection as well as a number of special exhibitions. Kunsten also hosts a variety of events including lectures, film screenings, concerts, family workshops, guided tours, and other activities suitable for all age groups.

The museum building, completed in 1972, is an attraction in its own right. Designed by the world-famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, assisted by Elissa Aalto and Jean-Jacques Baruël, it is the only museum building outside Finland designed by Aalto. The museum is built of striking white marble, a style that is continued inside with stunning marble flooring and copper lamps, also designed by Aalto.

Read more on kunsten.dk.