Alison Knowles Retrospective at Nikolaj Kunsthal Highlights Site-Specific Fluxus History

The retrospective 'Alison Knowles: Retrospektiv 1960-2022' closed at Copenhagen's Nikolaj Kunsthal on July 26, 2026, after a run that began in 2022. The exhibition, curated by Karen Moss and organized by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, has traveled to Berkeley, the Museum Wiesbaden, MAMC+ in Saint-Étienne, and Copenhagen. It will open at the Grey Art Museum, New York University, on September 9, 2026. Knowles, the only woman among Fluxus founders, died in New York on October 29, 2025. The Copenhagen iteration was distinct because it was held in the same deconsecrated church where Knowles performed 'Nivea Cream Piece for Oscar Williams' on November 23, 1962, during the Festum Fluxorum, the second Fluxus festival. The show's installation treated the building as a chronology, with 1960s works in the lower gallery and later works in the Tower Gallery. Director Aukje Lepoutre Ravn, who arrived on February 2, 2026, emphasized responding to the architecture. The exhibition included a reconstruction of 'The House of Dust' with students and invited visitors to deposit red objects in 'Celebration Red'. The Knud Pedersen Fluxus Archive remains in the building.