“These stories are in the Bible. These are in the imagery. It’s in the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted Noah naked. I saw it with my own eyes. I was like, ‘What? What’s going on in this picture?’”
Danish artist Alexander Tovborg revisits the biblical story of Noah. Not the children’s version filled with cute animals and rainbows, but the darker tale of destruction, survival, and drunkenness that follows the flood.
“What are the stories that we are being told? Noah’s Ark, is that a good story? … My kids love it. All the animals, so cute. But everybody else drowned. That’s the story. God drowned everybody. And then afterwards? Noah becomes the world’s first winemaker, gets drunk, takes off his clothes, and punishes his own son. These are the stories we live with. They’re all around us,” Alexander Tovborg explains.
With fascination and irreverence, Alexander Tovborg highlights how myth and religion are deeply embedded in our cultural imagination: “It’s the language of our day-to-day understanding of culture, of talking to each other. The religious language is everywhere. I love it.”
Alexander Tovborg (b. 1983) graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Art in 2010. His works have been featured in galleries and institutions worldwide, including ARoS, Overgaden and GL Strand in Denmark, State of Concept in Athen, Camden Art Centre in London, IMMA Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, and various public art commissions. His works are represented in the collections at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Kunsthalle Bremen, ARKEN in Ishøj, ARoS in Aarhus, and the Museum of Religious Art in Lemvig.
Alexander Tovborg was interviewed by Nanna Rebekka in his studio in Copenhagen and Jesuskirken in Valby, Denmark, in April 2023.
Camera: Philip Peng Rosenthal
Edited and produced by: Nanna Rebekka
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026
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