Image: MAPS season-opening announcement, 11 September 2026. MAPS, Køge
MAPS – Museum of Art in Public Space in Køge, Denmark, will open ‘Skibet, Der Strandede på Enghavevej’, an exhibition examining the development of Tove Storch’s 17-metre red concrete sculpture ‘Skibet’. The presentation will bring together models, drawings and sketches documenting how the work evolved through experiments with plaster, concrete, fabric and gravity. It will be on view at MAPS from 11 September 2026 through 3 January 2027.
The exhibition focuses on the stages between an initial idea and a finished work in public space. Rather than presenting ‘Skibet’ only as a completed monumental object, MAPS will use preparatory material to show how changes in material and form contributed to the sculpture’s final appearance. The museum describes the process as one in which material, site, history and people collectively shape a public artwork.
‘Skibet’ was erected in 2025 by Områdefornyelse Bavnehøj and the City of Copenhagen. The sculpture’s title, which translates as ‘The Ship That Ran Aground on Enghavevej’, connects the work to an urban setting, while the exhibition’s material studies offer a closer view of how its substantial concrete form was developed. MAPS characterises the resulting shape as simultaneously heavy and soft, solid and mobile, suggesting associations that may include a ship, a drop, an opening or a body.
The project aligns with MAPS’s institutional focus on the research and production behind art in public space. The museum holds more than 19,000 preparatory works for realised and unrealised public-art projects, including sketches, models and other material traces. It was founded in 1977 as Køge Skitsesamling and was known from 2009 to 2025 as KØS – Museum of Art in Public Spaces. In January 2025, it adopted the name MAPS – Museum of Art in Public Space as part of a broader emphasis on public art in a national and international context.
MAPS says the collection and its archive are intended to preserve both artistic preliminaries and documentation of the processes, events and debates surrounding public artworks. ‘Skibet, Der Strandede på Enghavevej’ extends that approach into a dedicated exhibition, allowing visitors to follow the work’s formation through physical and graphic evidence rather than encountering only its final installation.
The exhibition will open as part of MAPS’s season launch on Friday, 11 September 2026. The museum’s programme begins at 4 p.m. with the opening of a student exhibition, followed by the official season opening at 5 p.m. and a presentation of the forthcoming programme by MAPS director Malene Natascha Ratcliffe at 5:15 p.m. A separate new project, Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm’s interactive installation ‘A Black Hole Calling Us’, will be introduced at Køge Station’s Stationspladsen at 5:40 p.m.; the evening will continue at MAPS with music and film programming. Admission to the season opening is free.
