John Kørner Gym bar

At Kunsthal Spritten, we’re fascinated by the building’s past as a spirits factory. And by how stories from the past can be revived and put to work in new contexts. John Kørner’s Gym Bar is a striking example.

Gym Bar (2015) challenges our established ideas about bodies, community, drinking culture, inclusion and exclusion. Having appeared in a range of institutional and party settings over the years, the work has now found a permanent home in the former distillery.

A bar counter usually stands around 105–110 cm high; a standard size designed to ensure the patrons’ comfort and good working conditions behind the bar. At 207 cm, John Kørner’s Gym Bar is almost twice as tall.

Here, the Danish artist John Kørner (b. 1967) has created a work that quite literally towers over its guests: a functioning bar fronted with wall bars – the kind you’d find in a school gym — which you have to climb if you want to be served.

Gym Bar puts the body to the test. It’s a challenge some bodies can meet, while others can’t. A bar counter serves a practical function, but also involves social aspects. A bar is a place where you meet friends, acquaintances and strangers. The physical object shapes the social space while also determining who gets to join in and who is left out. That becomes unmistakably clear when visitors interact with Gym Bar, where form and scale are pushed out of proportion.

Gym Bar is made from solid oak. The rungs that make it usable resemble the wall bars that line the walls of many sports halls. As the title suggests, the work draws on the world of school gym classes, a phenomenon which the artist remembers as awkward, uncomfortable and problematic, rooted in old-fashioned ideas about discipline.

The gym hall is a place where you are judged on physical ability. Where some people are first in line and others are picked last when teams are chosen. Here, our bodies determine our place in the overall hierarchy, and standing out from the norm can be difficult — as the artist remembers from growing up tall, eventually reaching 207 cm.

John Kørner: Gym Bar, 2015

Donated by the artist to Kunsthal Spritten, 2025

Courtesy Galleri Bo Bjerggaard