Thomas Altheimer

Work for Live Art Denmark
2011 “The Case against Nielsen” at Samtalekøkken

The Case against Nielsen
We invited Thomas to one of our Samtalekøkken events in early 2011. He used the opportunity to tell the story of his court case against Claus Beck-Nielsen, who allegedly stole his identity, by making him a character in the book “Suverænen”. Nielsen and Altheimer worked and travelled together on a series of rather radical peformative excursions, which Nielsen used as content for some of his books, fictionalising Thomas’ real name, address, family etc. It is a convoluted story of a love-hate relationship between two of the most mysterious protagonists of the contemporary Copenhagen art scene, often blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, reality and myth. Read a detailed account of the fascinating and sad story on Vice, watch the documentary “I am Fiction” or our video of Thomas’ appearance at Samtalekøkken:

About the Artist
Thomas Altheimer (also known as Tom Dane, born as Thomas Skade-Rasmussen Strøbech in 1972) is a filmmaker, activist, comedian, conceptual and performance artist. He is an alumnus of the now defunct London Consortium (Birkbeck College) and holds a PhD in art practice from Goldsmiths College.

Altheimer is known for using his identity as a site for political experimentation and exploration. This work has led to a series of projects — so-called “parallel actions” — which seek to blur the boundaries between art and life. Altheimer works in the Situationist tradition with détournement as a key tactic. In recent years the impact of several legal proceedings has foregrounded questions of fictionalisation and identity in his work.

There seems to be no current website on Thomas, but a comprehensive entry on Wikipedia.