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<\/picture><\/span><\/div>\nPhoto: Courtesy of Mark Hunter \/ The Cobrasnake<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n Who hasn\u2019t dreamt of a night at the museum? Movie versions of such adventures build up a hushed and suspenseful feeling of containment. Danish wunderkind, the multimedia artist Esben Weile Kj\u00e6r<\/a>, took an entirely different, and wanton, tack to the trope when he kicked off the Toaster Performance Biennale<\/a> in Copenhagen at Den Frie Udstilling<\/a> with a new version of \u201cHardcore Freedom.\u201d This piece brings a party into a museum space. In this iteration, after a several hour freeform dance performance attendees were able to hit the floor and dance to sets by DJs Courtesy and Europa.<\/p>\n \u201cHardcore Freedom\u201d debuted at Copenhagen Contemporary<\/a> in 2020 where it unfolded over three months, with the detritus of raving\u2014empty bottles, cigarette butts, lost items of clothing, confetti\u2014accumulating over time. Beyond exposing \u201cthe material of social interactions,\u201d says Weile Kj\u00e6r, \u201cI wanted to somehow deal with this emptiness of the word freedom that we\u2019re exposed to so much or we\u2019re seeing everywhere. . . . What does it actually mean? Is it only a fantasy? How does this feel?\u201d<\/p>\n In 2020 Weile Kj\u00e6r was just starting out; six years later he\u2019s an art world darling. He chose not to perform himself because, he said, \u201cI wanted to somehow give it to the next generation, so I started to cast the next generation of young people in Copenhagen that are defining nightlife and culture and images. The performance, which drew 1,600 people, unfolded over four hours as self-styled dancers writhed over a circa 1980s lit-up chessboard floor (shades of Gavin Brown\u2019s late, lamented Passerby bar in New York) that was paid for by a collector and driven to Denmark from Sweden.<\/p>\n As a teenager growing up in Aarhus,Weile Kj\u00e6r avidly followed The Cobrasnake<\/a> Mark Hunter\u2019s documentation of Los Angeles and New York nightlife scenes, which birthed indie sleaze aesthetics, so it was wish fulfillment to have the photographer capture the action in Copenhagen. These new images, some of which look like they could be dated 2012, show that the mid-2000s aesthetic has no curfew. Said Weile Kj\u00e6r: \u201cI think what is so interesting about culture is that it\u2019s always an echo, this nostalgic echo, going through history.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n