Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel Emergency Art

October 1st – 31st, 2026
From October 1st to 31st, 2026, Maison du Danemark, located on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, presents Emergency Art (Art in the Face of the World’s Emergencies) by French-Danish artist Thierry Geoffroy, known as Colonel. This free exhibition explores art’s capacity to act in the present or even in anticipation of future, coming events, and examines how contemporary creation can respond to emergencies—climatic, social, and political—while producing lasting and meaningful works.

For over forty years, Thierry Geoffroy has been developing research around Art Formats, tools he invented to spark debate, awaken collective consciousness, and stimulate artistic creation. Formats such as Emergency Room, Critical Run, The Awareness Muscle, and Slow Dance Debate have been activated in museums and biennials worldwide (MoMA PS1, HEART Museum, Venice Biennale). The project presented at Maison du Danemark follows this tradition while offering a site-specific update in Paris, in a place emblematic of French-Danish dialogue. The exhibition combines retrospective and activation, memory and action, inviting the public to experience “ultra-contemporary” art—that is, art that is created and exhibited here and now.

WE FIND BEAUTY IN THE WORLD WE DESTROY, Randers Art Museum, 2022. Spraypaint on tent, 205 × 140 × 100 cm. © Thierry Geoffroy
The exhibition at la Maison du Danemark is part of a broader reflection on the role of art in the face of global crises and aims to foster encounters and debates among visitors, as well as an analysis of the creation of artistic expression in the “here and now.” It also offers a re-evaluation of ephemeral artistic practices and a platform for a network of engaged artists on an international scale.

Emergency Art is based on a fruitful tension between two temporalities:
the urgency of reaction, that of the artist in the face of an event or the detection of impending threats ;
the duration of memory, that of the artwork that lives on and is reinterpreted over time.
These dialectic structures are the heart of the project: to demonstrate that art born in urgency can, with hindsight, become a bearer of historical, aesthetic, and critical value.
The exhibition unfolds across five complementary spaces, articulating practice, documentation, and participation.

The awareness muscle has to be trained every day, 2016. Neon, 150 cm x 52 cm. © Thierry Geoffroy
Section 1 – The Delay Museum

Initiated in Denmark in the 1990s and continued in Paris in 1991, the Delay Museum brings together a collection of works assembled by Thierry Geoffroy, created and exhibited according to a specific system. This museum project gathers works created “on the fly” by hundreds of international artists who participated in one or more of Colonel’s ultra-contemporary formats, in response to specific political or social situations. More than 400 artists joined this artistic movement. A selection of approximately fifteen works by Danish, French, and international artists will be curated by Tijana Miskovic. These often ephemeral pieces will be restored, framed, and re-evaluated: in retrospect, they reveal their avant-garde significance. Is a work created in haste destined to disappear, or can it become historical?

This section highlights the heritage value of works that were initially ephemeral, demonstrating the existence of a true aesthetic of urgency.

Critical Run, The Venice Biennale, 2011. © Thierry Geoffroy
Section 2 – The Energy Wall / Critical Run Stroboscopics

The exhibition continues with a video wall composed of a mosaic of films from the 200 Critical Runs held worldwide. These sequences, in which participants run while debating, visually convey the vitality of the group and the tension of the debate. The installation celebrates lucidity in action and the necessity of thought in motion. The subtitles highlight the participants’ thoughts.

Ultracontemporary is the art from the now à Art Africa Fair Cape Town. Gallery ULTRACONTEMPORAINE. Banner, 90 x 70 cm. © Thierry Geoffroy

Section 3 – The Ultra Contemporary Gallery

This section unveils to the public a space for daily creation where Thierry Geoffroy regularly produces new works throughout the exhibition, responding to the present moment. This process gives rise to a living online catalogue, combining immediate production and digital memory. This gallery embodies the evolving and reactive dimension of the project, its energy, its alert system — the “artist on call.”

Critical Run, Ultracontemporary art format, Moderna Museum, Stockholm, 2009. © Thierry Geoffroy

Section 4 – Public Engagement

A recruitment office in the exhibition invites the public to organize Critical Runs in their local communities, following a specific protocol and contract. Because la Maison du Danemark is located in a global centre, Critical Runs can find communities all over the world. Some of the videos received are integrated into the Energy Wall, making the exhibition a living, participatory organism that is regularly updated.

CAN WE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF 40,000 VIP GUESTS AT THE VENICE BIENNALE TO CREATE CHANGE? Slowdance Debate, June 2nd, 2011, Belgian Pavilion, Venice Biennale. © Thierry Geoffroy

Section 5 – Slow Dance Debate

The exhibition concludes with a more intimate and emotional format, where participants debate in pairs, while slowly dancing to soft music composed by the artist. This gesture symbolizes a different temporality of debate: slowness, empathy, and poetry.

STAY HOME IF YOU HAVE ONE. Spraypaint on tent, March 21st, 2020. © Thierry Geoffroy

Programming – talks
October 13, 7 p.m. – WHAT CAN WE DO? (art institutions, activism, and emergencies) with Khaled Ramadan and activists

October 15, 6 p.m. – CRITICAL RUN between the Maison du Danemark and Institut Suedois

October 22, 7 p.m. – Can contemporary art respond to today’s emergencies? With museum directors from France and Scandinavia

October 24, 5 p.m. – When the context is urgency with Paul Ardenne and Valentina Gioia Levy

HOW TO PROVOKE THE MOMENT OF CLARITY, Rio de Janeiro, 2014. Spraypaint on textile, 140 × 110 cm. © Thierry Geoffroy

About Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel

Thierry Geoffroy was born in 1961 in Nancy, France. He lives and works primarily in Copenhagen while expanding an international artistic practice. For over forty years, he has been developing a practice that questions art’s capacity to intervene in the present. His work is distinguished by the creation of Art Formats, participatory happenings that invite artists and audiences to react in real time to political, social, or environmental issues. Through projects such as Emergency Room, Critical Run, and Slow Dance Debate, presented in numerous international institutions, Geoffroy conceives of art as a space for experimentation, debate, and collective vigilance. His approach explores the tension between the urgency of action and the permanence of the artwork, defending the idea that a creation born in the moment can, over time, acquire genuine historical, aesthetic, and critical significance. He describes this approach as ultra-contemporary art: an art that is created in the present, as close as possible to the realities of the world.

Practical Information

Emergency Art
October 1st – 31st, 2026

Free admission, subject to availability

La Maison du Danemark
142 Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris

Opening hours
Tuesday–Sunday: 12 p.m.–6 p.m.

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