News
Smooth Operator
Solo exhibition
Fondazione Elpis
Milano, Italy
26 Feb to 14 June 2026
55.6° North
Group Exhibition
ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art
Ishøj, Denmark
5 February to 30 August
Paris Internationale Milano
Via Fabio Filzi, 25r, Milan
April 19, 18:30 - 20:00
Performance w/ Walter Bernath
Just-in-time
Solo presentation
ISCP
New York City, USA
14-15 November 2025
Resident at ISCP
The International Studio & Curatorial Program
New York City, USA
August to November 2025
Services
Solo exhibition
Kohta
Helsinki, Finland
27 February to 30 March 2025
Caffé Crema
Solo exhibition
O-Overgaden
Copenhagen, Denmark
22 November 2024 to 2 February 2025
Una Boccata d’Arte 2024
Public commission
Serre di Rapolano, Italy
Opening: 22 June
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Introduction text by curator Gabriele Tosi
In Sade’s famous song, the smooth operator is an international escort who doesn’t show his feelings. Emotional distance makes him obedient and supports an easy rise in status. Villiam Miklos Andersen (Kalundborg, Denmark, 1995) works with sculpture, installation, and relational projects. His research looks at today’s economic systems from a queer perspective. By observing workplaces shaped by male-dominated cultures and norms, he treats products as forces that produce social rules and standardisation. The artist’s first solo exhibition in Italy explores comfort as an institutional product: a system that decides who belongs, and under which conditions. It asks what emotional labour is required to maintain, protect, and circulate well-being. The exhibition spans three floors and reads the building as a sequence of rooms with distinct functions. The works bring together moments that usually stay apart: work and festivity, care and recovery, back office and social space. Standardised objects shift register through materials and techniques that make them sensory: light and transparency, rhythm, scent, touch. Cruising is a form of spatial knowledge developed under conditions of constraint. It relies on attention, mutual sensing, and shared codes - ways of finding one another within environments built for other purposes. Andersen approaches logistical systems with a similar attentiveness. The works introduce drift, delay, and sideward movement - gestures that recalibrate how bodies pass through spaces built for circulation and control. The exhibition itself is conceived as a cruising space. It invites visitors into a choreography of situations in which they choose between comfort ready to consume and comfort to be sweated out, with the body and senses in play.
All photos by Agostino Osio
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Just-in-time, 2025, wood, grid, coloured acrylic glass, accessories, 56 x 96 x 81 cm (2)
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Just-in-time (detail), 2025, wood, grid, coloured acrylic glass, accessories. 56 x 96 x 81 cm (2)
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, 2026, mysore wood marquetry (intarsia). 84 × 64 × 2,5 cm
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Transactions (the middleman), 2024, mysore wood marquetry (intarsia). 85 x 68 x 20 cm
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Transactions (The Green King) (detail), 2024, mysore wood marquetry (intarsia). 85 x 68 x 20 cm
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Verkstadskärra 3 (Ångenhet), 2026, mobile field sauna unit. 520 × 235 × 275 cm
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Verkstadskärra 3 (Ångenhet), 2026, mobile field sauna unit. 520 × 235 × 275 cm
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Verkstadskärra 3 (Ångenhet) (interior), 2026, mobile field sauna unit. 520 × 235 × 275 cm
& Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator - The Sauna Tour, 2026, video work produced in collaboration with M.B. Pedersen, soundtrack by Walter Bernath. 32’
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator - DJ set, 2026, video and sound installation with live activations produced in collaboration with Walter Bernath, 24 pack Poland Spring water bottles checked JFK/MXP
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator - DJ set (detail), 2026, video and sound installation with live activations produced in collaboration with Walter Bernath, 24 pack Poland Spring water bottles checked JFK/MXP
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator - DJ set (detail), 2026, video and sound installation with live activations produced in collaboration with Walter Bernath, 24 pack Poland Spring water bottles checked JFK/MXP
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
&
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Service Area (School), 2023, plywood, laser-jet print on paperbag, image transfer on acrylic paint. 40 x 40 cm
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Consignment № 28 (Franky on my ledger), 2023, intaglio type digital halftone print, acrylic glass, acrylic nuts and bolts. 80 x 60 x 4 cm
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Cabin 1, Cabin 2 & Cabin 3*, 2024, aluminum, rubber, foam, hinges, brackets, LED lights, paper towels, plastic bag. 120 x 80 x 210 cm (3)
*produced in collaboration with Victor Miklos Andersen
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis
Villiam Miklos Andersen, Smooth Operator, Installation view, 2026, Fondazione Elpis