MAPS – Museum of Art in Public Space in Køge has opened ‘The Story of Public Art’, the museum’s largest international exhibition to date, running from 9 October 2025 to 1 April 2029. The project traces artistic experiments in public space from 1950 to the present and brings together 90 artists from 40 countries in an exhibition format that is described by the museum as organic and dynamic, changing over the course of its four-year presentation.
The exhibition is presented by MAPS, which in January 2025 adopted its current name from KØS – Museum for kunst i det offentlige rum. The museum says it holds a collection of more than 19,000 preparatory materials for realised and unrealised public art projects and works as a museum, workshop and platform for research, education and collaboration. In that institutional context, ‘The Story of Public Art’ is positioned as a long-term survey of a field the museum has worked on for decades: art made for, and in dialogue with, public space.
According to the museum, the exhibition focuses on works that engage with social currents across time and geography, highlighting perspectives on identity, power structures, biopolitics, desire, labour, social relations, nature and reality. It also foregrounds time-based works that became reference points for later generations. The museum describes the show as connecting art to lived experience while underlining the international reach and significance of public art as a medium shaped by its contemporary moment.
The exhibition is structured around two curatorial strands. ‘Dancing in the Streets (On Power)’ examines performances, actions, manifestations and media interventions in cities around the world, with references ranging from Warsaw and Rio de Janeiro to Tamale and Times Square. The museum also points to media forms that span from 1980s Spectacolor billboards to contemporary AI worldbuilding. The second strand turns to artistic experiments in landscapes and in the tensions between nature and the human-made.
MAPS says the later phase of the exhibition includes Land Art, with examples ranging from Heinz Mack’s installations in the Tunisian desert to Agnes Denes’ wheat field on Manhattan. The presentation also names Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt and Jens Settergren among the artists featured in that section. In addition, the museum’s atrium foyer has been transformed into a live performance installation by Cypriot artist Maria Hassabi, expanding the exhibition beyond the gallery into the museum’s own architectural space.
The exhibition also carries a built-in programme of daily short introductions. MAPS says that every day at 12:15 it offers a 15-minute introduction to one work in ‘The Story of Public Art’, giving visitors a chance to focus on individual projects and their histories. The museum’s event calendar shows recent and upcoming sessions dedicated to artists including Allan Kaprow, Heidi Bucher, Martha Minujín, Günter Brus, Pope.L, Danh Vo, Alfredo Jaar, Curtis Cuffie, Jenny Holzer and Franco Mazzucchelli.
‘The Story of Public Art’ is curated by PhD Charlotte Sprogøe and designed by FormaFantasma, the Milan-based studio known for work including the main exhibition of the 2022 Venice Biennale, ‘The Milk of Dreams’. The museum says the exhibition is supported by a wide range of Danish foundations and sponsors, and identifies MAPS’ address as Nørregade 29, 4600 Køge.
