The Story of Public Art

MAPS—Museum of Art in Public Spaces presents its largest international exhibition to date, The Story of Public Art, opening on March 22, 2025. The Story of Public Art explores what artists do in public spaces and tells the story of groundbreaking artistic experiments in public spaces from the 1960s to the present. The show features over 120 artists from more than 40 countries in an organic and dynamic exhibition format that will evolve throughout its four-year duration, branching out into public spaces in different formations over time.

The Story of Public Art is the story of manifestations, situations, and temporary, fleeting forms. It is about movements, attitudes, and energies rather than monuments, statues, and public commissions. The show presents artworks that have become landmarks for future generations and have changed our perception of identity, power structures, biopolitics, desire, labor, social relations, nature, and reality—exploring the tensions and connections between art and life.

The Story of Public Art is divided into two parts:
–Dancing in the Streets (On Power)—The first part of the exhibition showcases artists’ performances, manifestations, and media interventions in cities worldwide. From Warsaw and Rio de Janeiro to Tamale and Times Square—and across media from the 1980s Spectacolor billboards to today’s AI world-building.

–Explosions (On Expansion)—The second part of the exhibition, opening on October 4, 2025, explores artistic experiments in landscapes and the interplay between humans and nature.

Dancing in the Streets (On Power) approaches the story of public art through performance, choreography, and actions. The exhibition begins with the pioneers of choreography in public space and with dance, as seen in how Hélio Oiticica orchestrated life in his Parangolés. As part of the exhibition, the museum’s foyer has been transformed into a mirrored installation, Passage, featuring a new performance commission by Maria Hassabi, Forwards. The commission can be experienced from March 22, 2025, to March 2029.

The exhibition explores how politics, technology, and sociality connect to psyché, sensibility, and aesthetics—both in shaping our way of life and in art. Highlighting women artists, it unfolds how artists have infiltrated, intervened in, and manifested within public spaces, offering new perspectives on power dynamics—how art has destabilized power, countered power, exposed it, mimicked it, infiltrated it, and explored it.

Dancing in the Streets (On Power) presents projects from more than 70 artists, including: Heidi Bucher, Hélio Oiticica, Theaster Gates, Lawrence Lek, Maria Hassabi, Michael Rakowitz, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Rosemary Mayer, Sanja Iveković, Suzanne Lacy, Nadya Tolokonnikova, Guerrilla Girls, Günter Brus, Göksu Kunak, 3Nós3, Alex Mlynarcik & Stano Filko, Alfredo Jaar, Allan Kaprow, Anna Halprin, Basquiat, Big Tail Elephant, Bjørn Nørgaard & Lene Adler Petersen, Concept 21, Curtis Cuffie, Danh Vō, Daniel Buren, Daniel Felstead with Jenn Leung, DIS, Erik van Lieshout, Ewa Partum, Franco Mazzucchelli, General Idea, Gordon Matta-Clark, Graciela Carnevale, Heather & Ivan Morison, Hi-Red Center, Ibrahim Mahama, Jenny Holzer, Jeremy Deller, Kader Attia, Kang Kuk-jin, Chong Ch’an-sung & Jung Kangja, Thomas Hirschhorn, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Pope.L, Pussy Riot, Rachel Whiteread, The Neo-Dada Organizers, Trisha Brown, Vito Acconci, Wolf Vostell, Yoko Ono, and others.

The Story of Public Art is curated by MAPS Senior Curator, PhD Charlotte Sprogøe. In her research, Sprogøe has explored exhibitions as living forms and contemporary art’s use of location and choreography. She has curated major contemporary art exhibitions for triennials, art centers, and museums, including Museum Brandts, Kunsthal Aarhus, and Kunsthal Charlottenborg.

The exhibition is designed by the Milan-based studio Formafantasma.

–Concept and design: Andrea Trimarchi, Simone Farresin
–Design development: Gabriele Milanese

MAPS—Museum of Art in Public Spaces is Denmark’s only museum dedicated exclusively to art in public spaces.