Kunsten som basis

Poul Henningsen is part of the Danish canon. The lampoon Hvad med kulturen? (What about culture? 1933) is his chief work and it highlights many of the crucial thoughts in the architect’s, the writer’s and the song writer’s production. However, the title of the intense little book is misleading, as the polemic text rather deals with art, and how the contemporary form experimental art (for example cubism) should be a guiding principle for a progressive culture policy. A point of the article is that What about culture? has far from mellowed. In that way the book and PH are a concise expression of the political and societal tensions that dominant in the 1930s.