Flammespor / Scorched traces - ceramics by Charlotte Nielsen

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Ceramic works by Charlotte Nielsen that are fired using raku techniques that traditionally means rapid firing at a high temperature and rapid cooling so the fired clay takes on the colours and the sharp look of weathered and rusted iron. These incredible pieces are inspired by ironwork with ribs and spirals that make the pieces look like worn machine parts. 

 

Officinet
Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Deignere
Bredgade 66
14 July until 18 August 2018

Lives & Works in Fiskars ..... an event for June at Design Werck in Copenhagen

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On Thursday evening there was the launch of a special event at Design Werck.

In partnership with ONOMA - the Cooperative of Artisans, Designers and Artists in Fiskars - Design Werck will show furniture, art, textiles, graphics; ceramic works and glass made in the historic village that is 80 kilometres west of Helsinki in Finland.

Founded in 1996, the association now represents 117 members. Twenty members of the cooperative will be showing their work here in Copenhagen and the exhibition, with works for sale, will continue through until 30th June.

Design Werck, Krudtløbsvej 12, Copenhagen K

 

 
 

Artists, designers and makers showing their work:

  • Heikki Aska, cabinet maker
  • Marko Escartin, wood worker
  • Antrei Hartikainen, cabinet maker
  • Lulu Halme, graphic designer
  • Sonja Tuulia Halttunen, graphic designer
  • Elina Makkonen, goldsmith
  • Olli Kari, muscician
  • Petri Koivusipilä, cabinet maker
  • Minja Kolehainenen, cabinet maker
  • Ivan Kulvik, cabinet maker
  • Camilla Moberg, industrial and glass designer
  • Piitu Nykopp, visual artist
  • Deepa Panchamia, textile artist
  • Katja Öhrnberg, visual artist
  • Ari Turunen, jewellery smith
  • Arto Vuohelainen, photographer
  • Karin Widnäs, ceramist
  • Tuulia Penttilä, cabinet maker
  • Matti Söderkultalahti, cabinet maker
 

food for the opening event was by Restaurant Kuparipaja in Fiskars and iced cider, gin and akvavit was from the Ägräs Distillery in Fiskars

 

Dinesen

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Dinesen, the Danish floorboard company, did not have a major exhibition in their showrooms in Copenhagen this year for 3daysofdesgn but I called in there on the way to look at the new showrooms for by Lassen that are on the third floor of the same building Søtorvet.

They have an amazing display that runs down the centre of the showroom with the base of a Douglas fir with the bark still attached but sawn through into enormous planks. A visitor had counted the tree rings and the fir, from a forest in South Germany, is thought to have been 117 years old when it was felled.

 

 

 

In from the base, more bark has been removed and the sawn planks are more obvious and then from there, running on down the showroom, is a table made from planks from the tree that are 50 metres long. FIFTY METRES.

It's truly astounding and it shows, in perhaps the most tangible way possible, that the Danish love of wood for furniture is not just about style or taste but about a deep understanding of timber and an appreciation of it's importance and a deep knowledge that comes from experience and decades … no not decades but actually centuries of working with wood in this country.

Dinesen

Just a few days earlier I had taken family, who were visiting, to the Viking Museum in Roskilde. The ships there - dating from the 11th century and excavated from the fiord in the 1960s - are stunningly beautiful and amazing for their size; for their striking design and for their engineering and above all because they show that shipbuilders in Roskilde a thousand years ago were masters of the skills needed to work with the timber and understood how to realise designs that were strong and did service for decades.

Outside, in the area between the museum building and the water of the fiord, there was a demonstration of various shipbuilding skills, using traditional techniques, and one craftsman was dressing the surface of a split timber plank with an axe. A tree trunk had been split with wedges then than being sawn … aa ancient technique that meant thin planks could be formed that took into account the twists and natural faults in the wood. With a few swings with the axe, the surface of the plank was taken back from rough fibres and splinters to a surface that was smooth and almost unblemished.

If anyone wants to know just why Danish furniture in wood is so good then the answer is simple … all it takes is a 1,000 years of experience.

Vikingeskibs Museet, Roskild

Woven Lines

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An exhibition of the latest work by the textile designer Helene Vonsild has just opened at the craft and designers gallery - Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere - in Copenhagen. This is an intriguing and very beautiful and elegant exhibition that is a development of the techniques and the ideas shown by Helene last May when the work Human Textile Object was selected for Liquid Life … The Biennale for Craft & Design.

 

 

K&D - Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere - Bredgade 66, 1260 Copenhagen K

the exhibition continues until 8 April 2018

I RUM - by Anja M Larsen

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Laser-cut textiles ... an exhibition of designs by Anja Merete Larsen … studies in aesthetics and acoustics

"Where is the line between public and private? Can we change people's habits by repositioning a wall, pull a curtain or turning a door? It has great value for both employers and individuals to create confidence-inspiring space.

There is currently much debate about creating work environments that can suit both introverted and extroverted personality types. Environments where people can find peace, energy and focus. What is the optimum for an effective workplace? I think this is an interesting discussion to take up."

 

Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere - Officinet, Bredgade 66, Copenhagen

3rd - 18th February 2018

 

Skud på Stammen

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An exhibition of furniture where newly-trained cabinetmakers have worked in collaboration with established designers to produce trial designs for furniture that would be appropriate for smaller homes. 

The exhibition showcases the work by students from NEXT– Uddannelse København who coordinate the training of both school students and vocational training for adults over the age of 25 in a wide range of work disciplines but also involved are DI - the association of Danish Industry - who have hosted the exhibition and, appropriately given this year’s theme, FDB Møbler - the furniture company of the Danish Cooperative movement who when they were first established in the late 1940s focused first on producing a range of well-designed and well-made furniture for young families setting up home and often within the limited space of a small apartment.

The other interesting aspect of the exhibition is that all the pieces had to be made in elm … a wood that in the past was used for making furniture but is a tree that in northern Europe in the late 20th century was almost-totally lost through first disease and then climate change. It is not as well known now as oak or beech for furniture making but has a distinct grain and it is good to see how the cabinetmakers have used a single type of timber to produce very different forms of joinery that exploit the unique character of the timber.

 

the exhibition continues until 6 April 2018

at DI (Dansk Industri) H C Andersens Boulevard 18, Copenhagen

AIR CHAIR
Designer: Troels Grum Schwensen
Pupils: Christoffer Andreas Rudolph and Kristina Nielsen

LÆNESTOL
Designer: Emil Reimert
Pupils: Laura Klakk, Pim van Vliet and Pernille Falsberg

TO BORDE
Designer: Åsa Alm
Pupil:  Lulu Jacobsen

EN STOL
Designer: Aske Foersom and Jesper Rosenmeier
Pupil:  Kris Vejnø

 

The Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition 2018

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It has been announced that the venue this year for the Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition will be the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen.

Each year the committee choses a theme for the works and this year it will be MONO with works to explore the ideas of monochrome; monologue or monolithic to create furniture that “individually and collectively express a rhythmic narrative and simple whole.”

Thorvaldsen’s Museum, on the north side of Christiansborg, was designed by the architect Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll and completed in 1848 to provide an appropriate building to house and display the work of the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. With the galleries arranged around a central courtyard, the rooms have a striking and rich colour scheme that formed a background to the neo-classical figures in the collection.

The furniture in the Autumn Exhibition will use one of the eight colours used in the decoration of the building or will be in the natural colour of the wood used.

Snedkernes Efterårsudstilling

Søren Ulrich - Christmas market Saturday 16th December

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Christmas market ... in Esromgade so just across the park from Jægersborggade.

Bowls, ladles, spoons in wood plus furniture and of course the amazing selection of woodwork tools. There will be stalls for food and drink - including, I was told, 'warm vermouth' - in the courtyard and works from other artists. 

Tools, books and work can also be ordered online through the new web site ... follow link below

Søren Ulrich Esromgade 15, Copenhagen

 

Christmas market at Designmuseum Danmark

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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

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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

Venterum at Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere

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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.

Kirsten Holm Nielsen

Birgit Daa Birkkjær

Jette Nørregaard

the exhibition continues until 24 September at Officinet, Bredgade 66, København K

 

 

Kunsthåndværkermarked - first day

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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. 

 

Kunsthåndværkermarked

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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 at Frederiksgade

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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? 

Weaving Kiosk

 
 

update - Liquid Life

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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.

DKoD Bredgade 66

 

Liquid Life - Biennalen for Kunsthåndværk & Design 2017

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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

 

 
 
 

note: select an image by clicking on it and that will take you into the gallery where the title of the work and the name(s) of the artist(s) can be found

more photographs

Ultimate Impact

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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

 

UNFOLDS at Designmuseum Danmark

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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.

UNFOLDS at Designmuseum Danmark

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