Hans Christian Andersen's darkness comes to life
In May 2027, "The Superstar Syndrome" will open - a sensory-rich and hypnotic exhibition of the world's biggest Hans Christian Andersen collection, created by film director Nicolas Winding Refn.
Photo: Det Kgl. Bibliotek
Published 15 September 2026 | Revision 06 October 2026
Forget the conciliatory fairytale writer from national romanticism. Beneath the surface of tales like "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Snow Queen" hides another Hans Christian Andersen: vulnerable, obsessed and torn between longing and pain. It is this Andersen that Nicolas Winding Refn now engages with as he delves into Royal Danish Library's world-leading Hans Christian Andersen collection. Not as an interpreter, but as a kindred spirit.
Nicolas Winding Refn, the creator of works like "Pusher," "Drive," and most recently, "Her Private Hell," has made the perspective of the outsider, the beauty of the brutal, and the dark side of humanity his artistic trademark. Now, he turns his attention to an author who has been dead for 150 years. And it turns out that they have been telling the same story all along, just in their own language.
Together in The Dark
The Superstar Syndrome is not a traditional exhibition. It demands something from its audience: that you surrender and let yourself be absorbed. Room by room and in collaboration with Royal Danish Library, Nicolas Winding Refn has staged a universe of unique installations. In these, original Hans Christian Andersen manuscripts, letters and diaries from the library's collection merge with Winding Refn's pictorial universe.
“Cultural heritage is fantastic because it can make us wiser about who we are – as humans and as a people. For many, Hans Christian Andersen’s writings are a natural part of Danish culture. But even a small, happy country has its dark sides, if you look closely enough. And we can learn from them. I look forward to opening the exhibition together with Nicolas Winding Refn in 2027 where we all can encounter the dark sides of Andersen’s universe – and perhaps even in ourselves.”
Two Souls. One Universe.
The exhibition is structured as a meeting and a fusion. Andersen's fairy tales and Winding Refn's imagery revolve around the same ambiguous territory: beauty and pain, light and darkness, sensitivity and brutality. Room by room, the two artistries are woven more closely together, until it is no longer possible to determine where the poet ends and the director begins. The result is an experience that speaks directly to the senses, and which perhaps reveals something about the audience's own darkness along the way.
"We will never know the true Hans Christian Andersen. And that's probably for the best. But his works will live on forever, and I have come to realise that he and I are the same person.”
Facts about the exhibition
Title: The Superstar Syndrome
Staged by: Nicolas Winding Refn in collaboration with Royal Danish Library
Location: The Black Diamond, Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen
Period: 21 May 21 2027 – 19 March 2028
The exhibition is realised with generous support from the A.P. Møllerske Støttefond, the Augustinus Foundation, the Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation and the Knud Højgaard Foundation.
Facts about Royal Danisk Library's Hans Christian Andersen collection and the project
Hans Christian Andersen's writings have been translated into more than 180 languages and speak to people across cultures, ages and centuries. The Superstar Syndrome is part of the library's efforts to make Hans Christian Andersen's writings more accessible to everyone.
he exhibition emerged from work on the library’s extensive Hans Christian Andersen collection, which is the largest in the world and listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. Over the coming year, the library’s initiatives will include educational programmes for primary and secondary schools, a theatrical production based on Andersen’s letters and a major digitisation project. Royal Danish Library’s unique collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s correspondence and manuscripts – comprising more than 50,000 pages – will be digitised by the end of 2027, giving everyone free access to this remarkable part of the world’s cultural heritage.
Biography - Nicolas Winding Refn
Film director, screenwriter and producer Nicolas Winding Refn is known for the Pusher trilogy (1996–2005), Bleeder (1999), Bronson (2008), Valhalla Rising (2009), Drive (2011), Only God Forgives (2013), The Neon Demon (2016) and Her Private Hell (2026).
Refn has also created the television series Too Old to Die Young (2019) for Amazon and Copenhagen Cowboy (2023) for Netflix, as well as the short films Touch of Crude (2023) for Prada and Beauty Is Not a Sin for Agusta.
Refn is also behind the art installations Satellites (Tokyo, 2025) and Satellites II (New York, 2026), created in collaboration with Japanese game designer Hideo Kojima for Prada.