CHART Art Fair
From 27 to 30 August 2026, we had the opportunity to spend a few rainy days in Copenhagen and start our international art fair season by attending CHART and Enter Art Fair.
CHART is a leading Nordic art fair for contemporary art. This year’s edition brought together 37 galleries, including both established and emerging galleries from across the region. Alongside the fair itself, CHART has developed a range of artistic and editorial formats throughout the year, including articles, a podcast, and international collaborations.
This wider programme was also visible during the fair, which included talks, performances, screenings, installations, and more. Since its founding in 2013, CHART has taken place at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, a rather unique venue for an art fair. The fair spreads through the building’s rooms, galleries, and courtyards, while also reaching out into the city, including Tivoli Gardens.
The public programme felt full of something new around every corner, with artist talks, film screenings, live performances, and more, keeping even the pickiest of art lovers entertained. As always, we also had the pleasure of taking part in CHART’s VIP programme, which included curator and artist-led tours, private collection visits, studio visits, and more.
CHART gallery highlight: Roland Persson at Helsinki Contemporary
One of the works that caught our eye at CHART was the silicone sculptures of Swedish artist Roland Persson, represented by Helsinki Contemporary. Persson presented hyperrealistic sculptures of fruit with flies and butterflies on them, through which he explores the individual and collective unconscious.
The depictions of half-eaten and decaying fruit made us acutely aware of the processes of living and dying, both active and passive at the same time. While the objects themselves were familiar, their silicone texture and hyperrealistic appearance created an uncanny feeling. The works made us reflect on what is real and surreal, and whether objects decay in the same way as living things do.
Explore Helsinki Contemporary’s CHART 2026 presentation
Artist studio visit: Sif Itona Westerberg
As part of CHART’s VIP programme, we had the opportunity to visit the Copenhagen studio of artist Sif Itona Westerberg.
Itona is a Danish artist working primarily with sculpture, reliefs, and large-scale installations. Drawing inspiration from Antiquity and Greek mythology, her work evokes a quiet but powerfully present sense of the passage of time, as well as the relationship between humans and nature.
The calm and light of her studio space felt like an extension of her minimalistic and beautiful style. It was a special experience to see where her sculptures and installations come to life, getting a closer look at the process behind her work. We completed our visit with an individual visit to the Frederiksberg church, where her ethereal installation inspired by the image of the mustard seed decorates the church door.
Enter Art Fair
Enter Art Fair offered a more international selection of contemporary art, bringing together 88 galleries from around the world. The fair presented a diverse range of art, including paintings, sculptures, ceramics, glass, video, and more.
Scandinavia’s largest international art fair took place at Lokomotivværkstedet, a former Danish locomotive maintenance hall. The venue was a perfect setting for an art fair of this scale, with its industrial character, high ceilings, and access to the surrounding garden.
As usual, visitors were invited to take part in a varied public programme, including talks on different artistic topics, performances, and events connecting gastronomy and art. Many of the performances took place in the garden, inviting visitors to experience the art in a more participatory way. This created a living artistic experience that blurred the lines between the performance, the artwork, and the audience. As part of the VIP programme, we also had the chance to take part in a foundation visit and an artist studio visit.
Enter Art Fair gallery highlight: Maria Bang Espersen at Galerie von Wegen
Our standout from the Enter Art Fair was the experimental glass sculpture of Maria Bang Espersen, represented by Galerie von Wegen.
Espersen’s works challenge what we expect glass sculpture to look like. They seem soft and almost gooey in their movement, reminding us of stretched-out bubble gum or something more fleshy. The candy-like colour palette and glistening surfaces of the smaller and mid-sized sculptures made them irresistible to look at more closely. They made us marvel at the mastery of such a delicate medium.
The fluidity of the sculptures made their movement feel limitless, as if the material could continue stretching, melting, and changing shape beyond the limits of the works themselves.
Visit to the Ferlov Mancoba Foundation
As part of the Enter Art Fair VIP programme, we had the chance to visit the Ferlov Mancoba Foundation and explore the work of Danish avant-garde sculptor Sonja Ferlov Mancoba.
The majority of her sculptures were not cast during her lifetime, meaning that she never saw many of her works in their final form. This speaks to the spiritual charge behind her practice and to her urge to create beyond recognition.
Working in Paris alongside Giacometti, Max Ernst, and Miró, Ferlov Mancoba devoted herself to sculpture in its most physical and uncompromising form. There is a particular bravery in working with such a raw and demanding medium, where material and form carry the work. Seeing the texture left by her fingers across the surfaces of the sculptures was especially moving. It made her presence feel almost tangible.
Reflections on CHART and Enter Art Fair 2026
Besides making us fall in love with sculpture, our art fair weekend in Copenhagen was an eye-opening one. Immersing ourselves in the Scandinavian art scene for the first time made us reflect on the role of regional art fairs on an international scale.
It was enriching to witness so much exciting work from both established and emerging artists and galleries, as well as the particular focus on opening up collecting to younger collectors. We also wanted to bring a little playfulness into the conversation ourselves, so we brought along a paper fortune-teller that helped visitors discover their collector type. We created different collector personalities, and it became a lighthearted way to start conversations about collecting and connect with people through their own relationship to art.
At the same time, the weekend made us question how one can meaningfully immerse oneself in and engage with the art scene at a region-focused fair when not being part of that region or fully familiar with its context. Participation is definitely a start. Curiosity, empathy, and openness take you even further.
Balancing our time between two art fairs during one weekend was a challenge in itself, but the meaningful connections we made with artists, collectors, galleries, and other fair visitors made it worthwhile. Whether at the fair venues, in a local museum, or even in a shared taxi, the conversations left us feeling inspired, curious, and eager for more.
