notes, reviews and photographs about current design, design shops, cafes and restaurants and exhibitions and galleries in Copenhagen
news, notes, photographs and thoughts about design, architecture, planning and townscape and exhibitions in Copenhagen
This weekend - the 1st 2nd and 3rd December - is the Christmas market for crafts in the courtyard garden of the museum with stalls selling ceramics, textiles, jewellery and more with traditional drinks for this time of the year including hot chocolate and of course glög
The marquee and market will also be open next weekend so on the 8th, 9th and 10th December
Rotation - the work of the ceramicist Jane Holmberg Andersen in the current exhibition at the gallery of Danske Kunsthåndværke & Designere Bredgade 66, Copenhagen until 8th October
An exhibition of the work of the ceramicist Kirsten Holm Nielsen, the textile artist Birgit Daa Birkkjær and the paper artist Jette Nørregaard under the title Venterum or Waiting Room inspired by the building which was the pharmacy of the hospital.
the exhibition continues until 24 September at Officinet, Bredgade 66, København K
Today was the first day of the major annual craft market at Frue Plads in Copenhagen - Kunsthåndværkermarked - with ceramics, glassware, jewellery and textiles. Organised by the members of the association of Danish crafts - Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere - the market continues on Friday and Saturday 11th and 12th August.
Not in the normal location on the large square across the north side of Vor Frue Kirke in Copenhagen - because of excavation works there - but for this year on the other side of the church.
This is an opportunity to see - and to buy - some of the very best of Danish craft. And the weather seems to have improved just in time.
Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere
Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10-12 August
Weaving Kiosk had set up a loom at Frederiksgade and showed some of the work they produce.
Rosa Tolnov Claussen and the Finnish fashion designer Merja Henele Ulvinen work together to run a series of weaving classes that introduce the craft skill to people who have not woven textiles before and they have designed pieces, like a backpack/bag, that students taking the classes can produce and take away with them … both the bags shown here were on loan from the new weavers who made them.
This is not about a nice hobby for weekends - though it could certainly be that - but neither is it about some sort of extreme political angst about people taking back the means of production.
But it seems to me that important initiatives like this are about making people aware of a strong tradition of making by hand the objects we need and use everyday. And by making design less about consumerism or passive search and buy - unless you define activity as swiping a finger across the screen of a phone or iPad - and certainly more about understanding materials and appreciating how things we use are made and understanding how it is possible to find good design that we like and good design that should - even if it is in a simple way - enhance our lives every time we use what we have.
And it seems to me that having makers, craftsmen and designers, working in the community rather than out on an industrial estate or in an open-air museum - should inspire us and inspire our kids to be fascinated by designing and making and producing so they understand much more about what they are buying. If children don’t see a work bench, how do they know they could one day be a cabinet maker and if they don’t see a potter at a wheel how do they understand how, by stages through our history, people have found ways to make wet clay into useful or beautiful pots or pots that are actually both useful and beautiful. Without handling yarn and making textiles how do we understand the different characteristics of linen or cotton or wool and how can we really appreciate the different textiles we buy?
Although the biennale exhibition of Danish craft at Museumsbygningen closed at the weekend, several of the works have been moved across the city and can now be seen at the gallery of Danske Kunsthåndværkerere & Deisignere - the Danish Crafts and Design Association - in Copenhagen at Bredgade 66.
This is the last two days of the Biennalen ... an exhibition of some of the very best of Danish craft work.
What is astounding here are those very qualities that are not normally associated with Danish design … or at least not with common preconceptions about Danish design from the late 20th century. So here there is strong, bold use of colour and texture and the exploration of ideas that challenge perceptions and preconceptions.
The theme Liquid Life - about how precarious modern life can feel - is from a text by Zygmunt Baumann and taken from his book Liquid Life that was published in 2005.
“Liquid life is the kind of life commonly lived in our contemporary, liquid-modern society ... The most acute and stubborn worries that haunt this liquid life are the fears of being caught napping, of failing to catch up with fast moving events, of overlooking the ‘use by’ dates and being saddled with worthless possessions, of missing the moment calling for a change of tack and being left behind.”
With an amazing diversity of both materials and techniques - with works in ceramic and glass, with textiles, jewellery, furniture, book binding, fashion and photography - and with many of the artists combining several materials and in some works several specialist skills - these works are the response that these observations by Zygmunt Bauman inspired in thirty seven artists, designers and makers ........... a response and an antidote.
Liquid Life - Biennalen for Kunsthåndværk & Design 2017
Museumsbygningen, Kastelsvej 18, Copenhagen until 27 May 2017
Ultimate Impact - an exhibition curated by Tina Midtgaard of the design studio Superobjekt - explores the culture of Scandinavian design through the works of 33 artists … photographers, ceramicists, glassmakers, cabinetmakers and textile designers.
Strong visually and important as an intellectual exercise about the imagination - the artists’ and our own - the works are arranged by five ‘phenomena’ - Fantasy, Exoticism, Silence, Ragnorak and Baroque. It is the juxtapositions of pieces and the reverberation or resonance or contrasts of colour or texture or material across the space that is important. Two works use sound and all the pieces experiment in very different ways with form and light and shadow.
This exhibition deliberately questions any lingering preconceptions about Scandinavian design and style.
As a venue, the gallery itself is dramatic, approached by a long spiral brick ramp to climb the round tower, and with the beams and posts and braces of the 17th-century space high above the church itself and, with the massive timbers painted grey and with plain white walls, the architecture provides a strong but open framework for such a complex exhibition but without competing and, with natural light from both sides, there is also the space that is essential for moving around and between the works. This, together with the high quality of the works, makes the exhibition an appropriately challenging but very rich and rewarding experience.
Ultimate Impact continues at Rundetaarn - The Round Tower in Copenhagen - until 2 July 2017
Danske Kunsthåndværkere og Designere - the Danish Association of Craft and Design - has redesigned their own online site ahead of their important Biennale and the site has information about exhibitions and the work of the assocaiation in Copenhagen and through regional groups.
This amazing exhibition of work by the Danish Cabinetmakers' Association at Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen - to mark their 25th anniversary - closes this weekend with the final day on 14th May. So this is the last chance to be perplexed or get lost in a world of craftsmanship and sorry if that sounds a bit like the blurb of an ad man but it's simply because this is an exhibition of intriguing works that demonstrate the very best of the skill and the imagination of Danish håndverkere - craftsmen - and superlatives are more than justified.
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