In this work he used wooden frames and wire netting to divide the exhibition space. Such grids frequently appear in his later works as a way to structure and alter the way we experience the world.

Also on exhibit is a film showing what is probably Nørgaard's most famous work from his early period, The Female Christ, a type of performance art that he refers to as "happenings." For this work his wife, Lene Adler Petersen, walked naked with a Christian cross through the Copenhagen Stock Exchange in 1969. Controversial for the time, the work tried to arouse a gender-political discussion of values in modern society.

1970's Horse Sacrifice is most likely one of Nørgaard's most controversial works. To demonstrate the irrationality and cruelty of the Vietnam War, the artist killed and dissected a horse. The pieces of the dissected horse were preserved in 199 air-tight cans.

In Repetitions (1976), a series of seven graphic prints, Nørgaard represents different art projects and subjects that inspired him in the early years of his career up to 1976, which include war, rituals, Nordic mythology, Maoism, religion, politics, among others. This broad range of subject matters are also seen in his later work.

Rethinking history

Marat - Who Was Corday? (1976-82) is Nørgaard's reinterpretation of Jacques-Louis David's classic painting The Death of Marat and is an example of the artist's thoughts on history.

According to history, French revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat was shot dead by a woman named Charlotte Corday in 1793. In the installation, Nørgaard made a plaster cast of himself which acts as a Marat shrouded in bandages as he sits in a bathtub, holding his own diary in an outstretched hand.

But while David's focus was on Marat in his painting, Nørgaard turns his attention to Corday. In front of Marat is a grid wall on which pictures of various women are hung, thus prompting viewers to reexamine the identity of Marat's female killer.

"Of course, history has some facts, events that happen. But when time goes on, we start to change views on what has happened. Sometimes you have to break down and look at it again and see what was happening. So it is a process of turning down and building up all the time," Nørgaard explained to the Global Times.