UKURANT 2021 - PERSPECTIVES

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Ukurant was founded by Kamma Rosa Schytte, Josefine Krabbe Munck, Kasper Kyster and Lærke Ryom.

Following an open invitation, and with more than 200 applicants, the works of 17 designers and artists were selected for this exhibition.

These works explore the overlaps between design and art and form and material with a strong emphasis on colour and texture.

The exhibition was design by Frederik Gustav and has been supported by the Danish design company Muuto.

photographs of all the works

Ukurant Perspectives, at Amaliegade 38

Perspectives was part of 3daysofdesign
but remains open every day through to Sunday 26 September

note:
Det Classenske Bibliotek in Frederiksstaden was built in the 1790s to house books collected by the industrialist and landowner Johan Frederik Classen.

Det Classenske Bibliotek, Amaliegade
Revalued, Elly Feldstein
Passive Coated Chair, Carsten In Der Elst
Lath Chair, Tanita Klein
Monolith, Baptiste Comte
Side Table, Alexander Kirkeby

 
 

NÅLEN I HØSTAKKEN / THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK

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3daysofdesign - the annual design festival in Copenhagen - is a good time for galleries and museums in the city to open new exhibitions.

The major exhibition in the city this year - NÅLEN I HØSTAKKEN / THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK - opened today at Dansk Architektur Center and shows the work of the Danish designer Cecilie Manz.

In part, the exhibition celebrates the award to Cecilie Manz of the Nationalbankens Jubilæumsfunds Hæderspris and explores her design process by looking at a number of major projects and at "the trajectory from intuition to the finished work."

This is the most elegant and certainly one of the most sophisticated and carefully presented exhibitions that I have seen in the city. Initial models, intermediate prototypes and finished designs are set out on fine, pale grey fabric and these surfaces also act as screens for sequences of images of working drawings from the design studio that are projected down in white outline to show the rational, step by step evolution of a design and the precise and detailed work that is required for each stage to realise the design, and particularly all the modifications required for industrial production and when, for example in ceramic wares for the table, a range of pieces is produced in different sizes.

There are five main sections to the exhibition, starting with the stages for the design of the WORKSHOP CHAIR and then a major project to design an extensive collection of porcelain dinnerware for ARITA JAPAN.

 

The third section, called FREEWHEELING, includes a wide range of furniture and household fittings designed by Manz and the fourth area, under the title DETAILING, has the subheading Purpose, Meticulousness, Dedication and includes glassware and the Beolit speaker from Bang & Olufsen.

The final section of the exhibition is called simply OBJECTS and is a fascinating and revealing collection of things, acquired by the designer over many years. These eclectic objects have inspired a design; triggered an idea; simply been a starting point for a design or suggested a shape or set a tone for the style of a finished product. 

Cecilie Manz - NÅLEN I HØSTAKKEN / THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK
Dansk Architektur Center, Bryghuspladsen 10, København
16 September 2021 - 9 January 2022

Cecilie Manz Studio

 
 

Skud på stammen at the Design Werck gallery

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Bord dæk dig - en eventyrlig historie / Table deck yourself - an adventure from fairy tales

An exhibition of furniture with tables and chairs by young cabinetmakers from Snedkernes Uddannelser and with lighting by students from the glass school of EUC Nordvestsjælland in Holbæk.

All the designs were inspired by traditional fairy tales.

The title of the exhibition - Bord dæk dig or Table Set Yourself - is from a story by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm about three brothers who are sent off to make their fortunes as apprentices and about the gifts they are given by their masters when they finish their training …. so more than appropriate for the theme for an exhibition by young furniture makers.

In the tale, one of the young apprentices is given a table by his master that, on command, sets or lays itself with a magic feast. The table was carried on the back of the apprentice so the table here is on a version of trestles and the top is made from many layers of veneer that must symbolise potential new layers as the table 'sets itself'.

The inspiration for the other tables were four tales from Hans Christian Andersen …...

Thumbelina was a girl who was so small that she was carried off by a toad and captured by a beetle but escaped on the back of a swallow and that tale inspired a table shaped like a beetle that is supported on insect-like legs and with chairs like giant insect or butterfly wings.

The Top and the Ball, also by Hans Christian Andersen, is a tale of love and loss and rejection and the complicated inlay of the top reflects the pattern of a satin ball that became lost and faded.

The Little Match Girl was caught out in a snow storm, and struck three of her matches for light and warmth and this has inspired the brilliant legs of the small tables with tops like match boxes with three of the four legs like used and burnt matches and the fourth match unused.

Klods-Hans …. Hans the Blockhead - seems to me to be a rather more obscure story that is less easy to interpret. it is the tale of three brothers, two of whom are sent off on horseback by their father to win the hand of the princess with fine wit and fine words and the blockhead son follows behind on a goat and collects on the way a dead bird and rank rubbish as gifts for the princess. The chairs are inspired by the goat but the table with its staggered ends and sliding extension leaves? …. is this the crenellations of the royal castle?

This is an exhibition about the imagination of the designers whose inventions are realised by cabinetmakers with the technical skills required to produce furniture of this quality.

 

Photographs for the catalogue were taken at the fairy-tale castle of Jægerspris Slot on Sjælland.

 


note:
I think that Skud på stammen can be translated as shoot or bud on the stem or tree trunk. It’s like the English phrase about mighty oaks that from little acorns grow but implies new growth or the new branch on the tree rather than a completely new tree so the relationship between the apprentice and the master.

Design Werck as a venue for the exhibition was planned for the Spring but it had to be postponed because of the lockdown.

Actually, it is a great show for this time of year, in the build up to Christmas, in part because of the fairy tale theme but also because the Christmas season is when, for Danes, the dining table and food becomes such an important part of celebrations with friends and family.

more photographs of the furniture and lights 

the exhibition opened on 6 November 2020
at Design Werck, Krudløbsvej 12, 1439 København
Design Werck
NEXT Uddannelse

note: Design Werck does not open on Mondays or Tuesdays

 

Kids’ City at the Danish Architecture Center

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Kids’ City is the big new exhibition at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen.

This is essentially an exhibition in two parts. 

Around the walls are panels with photographs and assessments that look at recent buildings designed for children - so schools and the new hospitals for children - showing the best of Danish architecture and design and showing what has to be done to create the best possible space for children when they are learning or playing or when they are ill.

However, the main part - literally at the centre of the space - are a series of large structures for children that are a variation on the brilliant playgrounds found around Denmark in public spaces and the courtyards of apartment buildings and in schools where children are encouraged, in the best possible ways, to exercise and to learn through play.

Just watch children playing here and, yes, you begin to see that this is kids having a fantastic time but, much more than that, it is about a huge investment in our future.

This is where and how Danish children learn to take good design for granted but in that process learn that good architecture and the best possible design is a crucial part of their lives. That should establish expectations and nurture an understanding of the role of good design and trigger, we hope, the interest and then the enthusiasm and then the focus that will produce the next generation of great Danish architects and designers.

Kids’ City continues at Danish Architecture Center until 10 May 2020

 
 
 

Denmark's Next Classics

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This is the last opportunity to see Denmark’s Next Classics at Designmuseum Danmark.

The exhibition shows the work of five designers who took part in a series on Danish television in the Spring that sought to find new designs that could become design classics in the coming years.

From each designer there is a dining chair, a dining table that can be extended, a pendant light, furniture for children, a sofa and a lænestol or arm chair.

With sketches and models for the designs and with audio-visual material - including clips and interviews from the programmes - Denmark’s Next Classics explores the process of design.

The designers are Janus Larsen, Isabel Ahm, Rasmus B Fex, Kasper Thorup and Rikke Frost.

Judges for the competition were Anne-Louise Sommer - professor of design and now director of Designmuseum Danmark - and the designer Kasper Salto.

Denmark’s Next Classics
at Designmuseum Danmark until 1 September 2019

the six programmes can still be viewed
on line through the DR site

 

Is This Colour? … an exhibition by Kontempo at The Round Tower

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Kontempo, an association of textile designers in the Nordic region, was founded in 2015. With a board of eight textile and furniture designers who meet once a month, they are "working to raise awareness about contemporary textile work and practices."  

Is This ….? …. is a series of exhibitions by Kontempo with Is This Colour? being the third following Is This Textile? in 2016 and Is This Knit? in 2017.

Here, twenty four works are shown that, using many different materials and styles, explore aspects of colour. The Gallery is in the Trinitas Church, the parish church for students, in an upper level that housed the university library, and access is via the brick spiral ramp in the tower. With windows on both sides - with views over the city - there is amazing natural light through the space and that is exploited in the exhibition so that what is clear, immediately, is that surface, texture and shadow all have a crucial role in how we perceive colours.

KONTEMPO
the exhibition continues at Rundetaarn / The Round Tower
 until 23 June 2019

the framework
ide Blichfeld

NCS S 1080 Y20R
Kitt Dusnia

compleat
Charlotte Østergaard

colour lab
Louise Sass

duotone
Eva Fly

translucent faces
Henning Larsen

Fællesskab anno 2019 - Biennalen for Kunsthåndværk & Design /

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Community anno 2019 - The Biennale for Craft & Design

 

The Biennale of Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere - the Association of Craft and Design - is a major exhibition for craft in Denmark with a prestigious prize.

Following an open call for ideas for works on a theme of Community, eighteen were chosen for the exhibition at Nordatlantens Brygge in Copenhagen - an impressive 18th-century, brick warehouse at the centre of the inner harbour. The Biennale is in a gallery space on the attic floor with good light from windows on both sides so low, strong natural light, forms shadows across the space, as the sun moves round the building, but that light emphasises the confident use of deep colour and strong element of texture in many of the works.

Some of these works are about family - about the gift of food at the table or about memories of lost loved ones - and there is a strong sense of exploring - exploring through play and exploring through senses not always associated with design - specifically taste as in flavour - as well as the obvious senses that mean we can appreciate carefully designed shapes or the choice of a colour in beautiful and well-made object.

These are exceptional and unique works, formed, in large part, from common and everyday materials but, primarily, they are works that express individual imagination so are about communicating ideas … in some cases complex ideas. Shape and form and colour, choice of material and even technique of crafting those materials are all used as a way to communicates and become as valid as language and spoken words …. what Pernille Stockmarr identifies in the catalogue as "archetypal forms that make up a common primeval source of inspiration."

Several of the projects were produced together with other artists and the biennale is clearly an opportunity to share experiences and increase debate and discussion …. more than appropriate given the theme for the exhibition of Community.

 

from the open call for the 2019 Biennale

 

Jury of the Biennale exhibition in 2019

Anni Nørskov Morch, exhibition curator of Koldinghus 

Maria Foerlev, owner of design gallery Etage Projects 

Pernille Stockmarr, curator at Designmuseum Danmark

 

Prize Committee for the Biennale in 2019

Pernille Stockmarr, curator at Design Museum Denmark 

Christina Zetterlund, freelance curator and lecturer at Linnaeus University in Sweden 

Peder Rasmussen, ceramist

 
 

TRÆ, SAKS, PAPIR / Wood, paper, scissors

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Karmstol, Stitched wood and a Skammel and Massive weaving

 

Knitted wood

Massive weaving and Folded wood

Knitted weaving and Folded wood

Knitted wood

An important exhibition of recent work by the furniture designer and architect Else-Rikke Bruun has just opened at the gallery of the Association of Danish Crafts and Designers in Bredgade .

There are several strong themes running through the works shown here but perhaps the most interesting and surprising idea is about not just defining space but also exploring shadow as a strong component as if it is itself a material element in the design.

Five screens in wood - the main works - define space but also occupy space and very considerable care was taken to set the lighting and to use the natural light of the gallery so strong shadows on the floor dissolve the sharp edge between the vertical of the screen and the horizontal surface of the floor and views through the screen and light coming through the screen from the other side change as you move round the space.

After completing her training as an architect Else-Rikke Bruun studied Arabian architecture for three years and here not just the fragmenting of light but also the use of precise geometric forms show the influence of Arabian architectural forms. Walking around the exhibition Else-Rikke explained that she is fascinated by patterns and the way we look for patterns and geometric pattern has a strong role in architecture of the Middle East, North Africa and southern Spain.

Influence from Japan is acknowledged both in the way the screens and the arrangement of faceted blocks of wood in the chair and in small panels reference the Japanese art of folding paper - two panels in wood are titled Origami panel - but also there is the sense of a Japanese aesthetic in the calm and measured division of space - a key feature of the way the pieces have been arranged in the gallery.

All the works shown are made with incredible precision so they also have the quality of fine engineering - particularly in the way separate pieces are linked or joined together or have different forms of hinge: all the screens can be articulated to adjust the angles of the parts or the alignment of the whole screen and Knitted wood folds back in on itself.

Another strong theme is inspiration from textile art and that is shown directly in the titles of three of the works … Stitched wood, Massive weaving and Knitted wood. This is not just about how elements interlock - Veneer has what are in fact giant warp and weft in cut plywood - but, as with woven textiles, the visual character from a distance is different from the complexity and subtlety that is revealed as you move closer.

Four of the works exploit the properties of laminated wood and develop different techniques for cutting to shape, bending, linking or interlocking plywood.

Use of colour is important but generally subtle … the screen titled Massive weaving uses spray paint so colour is strong on the cross-cut ends of the battens but fades out along the length. This work was developed with the colour artist Malene Bach. Generally subtle except that Knitted wood has a strong colour on one side that counterposes the shadow as you look through the interlocking curves.

The exhibition is the culmination of over a year of work specifically but actually develops and builds on themes that were first shown by Else-Rikke Bruun in the craft Biennials in 2015 and 2017.

Immediately  before the exhibition Else-Rikke Bruun had a residency at Statens Værksteder for Kunst / Danish Art Workshops in Copenhagen and in a longer review here both the development of the main ideas and themes of the exhibition and the role of the workshops in giving artists access to space and equipment to realise their work will be discussed.

Stools in Oregon pine were made by Anders Petersen Collection & Craft in Copenhagen.

Karmstol, the chair in the exhibition, took, as a starting point for its design, round-headed niches at each end of this gallery. It is not strictly site specific but does hint at just how carefully-considered this work is with strong references to the design of Classic Danish chairs while experimenting with both form and construction techniques. It is an important piece that blurs our artificial boundaries between art, craftsmanship and utility and will be the subject of a separate post.

Danske Kunsthåndværkere og Designere

Else-Rikke Bruun

 30 November 2018 - 20 December 2018
Officinet, Bredgade 66, Copenhagen

SHARING - an exhibition to celebrate completion of work on the entrance court of Designmuseum Danmark

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Major work on the entrance courtyard of the deign museum in Copenhagen has just been completed.

The gate piers and ironwork across the street frontage of the 18th-century courtyard have been rebuilt; cobbles across the area relaid; the entrance and ticket area for the museum has been moved out to a pavilion on one side of the courtyard along with a small coffee shop.

Five free-standing display cabinets have been constructed so that objects from the collection can be brought out from the museum to the forecourt and the first exhibition in this revitalised space has opened.

For the first exhibition here on the entrance courtyard, new design is now being shown under the title SHARING. An information panel explains the ideas behind this major project and is quoted here in full ……. 

The works in these five new display cases on the entrance courtyard are ….

CLAYDIES
Ceramics by Karen Kjældgård-Larsen and Tine Broksø

KASPER KJELDGAARD
Dele al familien / Parts of the family 2018

MARGRETHE ODGAARD
Blå red violet / Blue Red Violet textile by Kvadrat

KIBISI / BIOMEGA Bjarke Ingels, Jens Martin Skibsted, Lars Holme Larsen
Elcykel / E-bike OKO Night Glow 2017

ASTRID KROGH
En firkant af universet / A Square of the Universe 2018 LED

L1310953.jpg
 
 

MONO - Snedkernes Efterårsudstilling / the Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition 2018

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Piqué
designed by: Hannes Stephensen
produced by: Snedkersind v/Kristian Frandsen

Sunrise
designed by: Lise og Hans Isbrand
produced by: MoreWood Møbelsnedkeri ApS

 
 

The Cabinetmakers Autumn Exhibition for 2018 has just opened at Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen.

SE - Snedkernes Efterårsudstilling - The Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition - is an association of 81 designers and manufacturers. Each year their board select a venue for their exhibition and set a theme along with any specific rules for a particular year - often to do with dimensions but this year also stipulating colour - so each work will be restricted to just one colour with the choice limited to either the natural colour of the material itself or to one of the strong and distinctive colours used in the original decorative schemes of rooms in Thorvaldsens Museum.

Each year, guest designers and guest manufacturers can apply to show their work. 

When setting the theme for this year, MONO was suggested to imply a range of associated ideas through monochrome, monolith, monopoly and monologue.

A subheading for the exhibition - furniture shaped by craftsmanship and insight - is important and significant: these pieces highlight the skills and the experience of the cabinetmakers who, in some pieces, take their chosen materials to new extremes and, in all the works, push their workshop techniques to the highest level of quality. So the exhibition is in part about the style and the form of each work but because, the cabinetmakers also represent a long and well-established craft tradition in Denmark, these pieces are about understanding the materials, to know what can be done and how, and to use incredible skills to shape, finish, join, refine or reduce the parts that make each work.

There are forty one works in the exhibition. Most were produced in a partnership between a designer and a cabinetmaker or furniture manufacturer - in many cases a  partnership that is now well-established over many years and over several projects shown at the Autumn Exhibition although several pieces were both designed and made by the same person.

The exhibition is also an opportunity to experiment or to produce designs that might otherwise not be commissioned … the aim is not only to challenge the skill of the maker but also to challenge the preconceptions of the visitor.

 

2 November 2018 - 9 December 2018
Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen

Thorvaldsens Museum
SE - Snedkernes Efterårsudstilling

Cupola drejestol / Cupola swivel chair
designed by: Niels Gammelgaard
produced by: Northern Layers

En stol / A chair
designed by: Foersom & Hiort-Lorenzen
produced by: Kvist Industries A/S

Introvert position
designed by: Andreas Lund
produced by: Toke Overgaard

Rum / Encircle
designed by: Troels Grum-Schwensen
produced by: Malte Gormsen

2Gether
designed and made by: Steen Dueholm Sehested

Bloom
designed by: Hannes Stephensen
produced by: Egeværk

Beside
designed by: Line Depping
produced by: Skagerak Denmark A/S

Guldlok / Goldilocks
designed by: Monique Engelund
produced by: Sune Witt Skovhus