Like our collection and profile, the museum’s research focuses mainly on contemporary art as expressed from 1960 to the present in art forms like sound art, performance, social practices, new media and other entirely different formats.

The research can be art historical, looking at specific works and art practices based on temporal art forms. It can also be curatorial, promoting the development of new exhibition concepts.

We are likewise engaged in museological research. Zeroing in on the museum institution, we investigate the museum in relationship to artists, exhibition formats, outreach and the surrounding society.

The museum continually works with scholars and other museums to develop research-based exhibitions, engaging in dialogue about museums and the significance of (contemporary) art.

The Distributed Art Museum

From 2020 to 2023, the Museum of Contemporary Art is working with postdoc Rasmus Holmboe of the New Carlsberg Foundation’s Art as a Forum research centre at the University of Copenhagen. 

The research project The Distributed Art Museum investigates how situated, dynamic and relational art practices can be linked to the museum institution in a distributed field. Holmboe is also the initiator of the Nordic museum network Museum Why?