It is with great pleasure that Kunstforeningen GL Strand opens its doors in September for Stanley Kubrick – The Exhibition. This will be the first presentation in the Nordic countries of the exhibition, which has drawn large numbers of visitors all over the world – from cities like Paris, LA, Seoul, Amsterdam and now most recently Mexico City. The huge popularity of the exhibition bears witness to Kubrick’s enormous importance as a film director. Stanley Kubrick died suddenly in March 1999 – shortly before the premiere of his last work, Eyes Wide Shut. He left us not only an impressive legacy of films and unfinished projects, but also a huge collection of scripts, design sketches, notes, photographs, costumes, props and other unique objects from his many film shoots. The exhibition in Copenhagen is specially organized for GL Strand with a focus on Kubrick’s visionary work within a variety of aesthetic fields and in terms of storytelling and technology. It zooms in on the broad spectrum of material, with all of Kubrick’s films sharing centre stage.

Room by room, from the first to the third floor at GL Strand, the story of Stanley Kubrick’s fantastic development is told – from successful photographer for Look magazine at the age of just 17 until his breakthrough in the world of film when he was 30 years old and the subsequent creation of one masterly film narrative after another. Throughout, the exhibition offers, besides knowledge of his many works, a close-up of Kubrick’s dedicated working methods and artistic processes as well as insight into his large unfinished projects, the major movies Napoleon and Aryan Papers as well as the science fiction film AI, which was later directed by Steven Spielberg.

Stanley Kubrick was able to complete 17 films. He became famous for his innovation and uncompromisingly high standards, and his commitment to all the artistic aspects of film –from visual composition, lighting, technology, music to stage design and much else. Precisely this interest in all aspects of the artistic expression of film has made many of his films iconic masterpieces. The space helmet, the dresses of the twins, and the masks are some of the unique, recognizable visual characteristics that immediately evoke the atmosphere of films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. These items and other exclusive material are presented in the exhibition side by side with extracts from all Stanley Kubrick’s films. The material we have on loan, comprising approximately 600 elements, mainly comes from Stanley Kubrick’s personal archives and includes scripts with his own notes, processual material and documentation from the film productions, design models, visual sketches, original props and much more. Kubrick’s films are all unique visual narratives – often with highly controversial themes which in their time led in several cases to censorship or uproar, as the material in the exhibition also documents.

Today his finely wrought works still constitute an important source of inspiration for film-makers and film-lovers all over the world, and several of Kubrick’s professional peers, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg as well as Danish film professionals, comment in the exhibition on Stanley Kubrick’s importance to them.

Stanley Kubrick – The Exhibition in Copenhagen has been organized by Kunstforeningen GL Strand and filmexpert Søren Høy as part of Kubrick Festival 2017 which is supported by Nordea-fonden. Original exhibition concept and exhibition tour is developed by senior curator Hans-Peter Reichmann and curator Tim Heptner from the Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main.

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) grew up in New York. At an early stage he developed an interest in photography and as a young man of 17 he was engaged as a documentary photographer for Look magazine. He was a self-taught film-maker and in his early twenties embarked on his film-making career by creating a series of short films. Kubrick’s significance as a film-maker can be attributed to the many masterpieces he created later. His work as a director has left us with some of the most memorable characters and scenes in the history of film, while with his passionate engagement in film and stage design, techniques, composition and music he elevated the medium to new heights.