Store Krukker / Large Pots at Designmuseum Danmark

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Designmuseum Danmark has just opened a new display in one of the large side galleries with 70 ceramic vessels from their own collection and described simply as large pots.

They vary in period and in country of origin but most are by Danish potters and artists and most are from the late 19th century onwards although there are also older ceramic vessels from Japan, Korea and China and work from Spain, France and England … all countries with strong but distinct ceramic traditions.

Some of the pieces are clearly storage jars - so utilitarian - but there are also sophisticated decorative vessels and some fine studio pottery.

The size of some of these pots is amazing and the selection of ceramics shown here provides an amazing opportunity to see how the technical skill of the potter; the form or shape of the pot; the choice of smooth, perfect and highly finished surfaces or the decision to leave a more natural finish determined by the character of the clay and the use or not of decoration, incised or in relief; the types of glaze; any use of texture or a preference for a smooth finish or high shine or matt surface and of course the final colour or colours produce works of incredibly diverse styles.

Designmuseum Danmark

 
 

NATUR KULTUR OBJEKT - works by Turi Heisselberg Pedersen and Marianne Krumbach

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Ann Linnemann Gallery

Natur Kultur Objekt at the Ann Linnemann Gallery in Kronprinsessegade shows the work of two ceramicists - Turi Heisselberg Pedersen and Marianne Krumbach - with ten pieces from each artist. 

These works could hardly be more different in style but it is interesting to see, juxtaposed here, their use of colour and texture and to see how these very sculptural pieces occupy their space.

read more

Ann Linnemann Galleri
Kronprinsessegade 51, København
12 September - 19 October 2019

 

Kähler at CHART Design Fair August 2019

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The Kåhler pottery was founded by Joachim Christian Hermann Kähler in 1839 and this exhibition at Den Frie - for the CHART Design Fair - is in part to mark their 180th anniversary. 

Initially, Kähler produced stoves and cooking pots and kitchenwares. Two sons - Hermann A Kähler and his younger brother Carl Frederik Kähler - took over the factory in 1872. After a fire in 1875, a new factory was established and the company began producing finer ceramics, particularly vases, and began working with ceramic artists including H Brendekilde, L A Ring and Carl Lund and later Karl Hansen Reistrup and then Svend Hammershøi who became the artistic director of the company. 

Kähler experimented with shapes, glazes - particularly a hallmark deep red lustre - and with decorative techniques of painting by hand.

The exhibition here showed a range of their pieces through the history of the factory that show how, as a commercial company, they had to respond to changes of fashion but also, by employing well-established and talented artists, they could also set certain styles. 

Plaster casts for slip-pouring moulded, rather than thrown, pieces and sample strips of glaze colours gave some insight into the technical aspects of the high-quality ceramics.

In 1974 the factory was sold to Næstved municipality and then passed through a number of owners including Holmegaard but since 2018 has been part of the Rosendahl Group.

Kähler

Finders Keepers at Øksnehallen

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select any photograph to open all in a Lightbox slide show

Today - Saturday 24 August - was the first of the two days of the design market at Øksnehallen - the old market hall in the Meat Packing District of Copenhagen that is just to the south and west of the central railway station.

Finders Keepers is a celebration of small independent design companies in Denmark and includes clothing, household textiles, leather goods as well as ceramics and glass and furniture. There are play areas for children and food stalls on the forecourt.

Finders Keepers continues tomorrow 25 August 2019
at Oksnehallen in the Meat Packing District of Copenhagen

 
 

Frue Plads Marked

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For three days at the end of the week, the annual craft market will be on Frue Plads - the square next to the cathedral in Copenhagen.

Organised by Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere - The Danish Association of Craft Workers and Designers - this is an opportunity to see and to buy some of the very best ceramics, glass and textiles made in Denmark.

Thursday 8 August 12 - 19
Friday 9 August 10 - 19
Saturday 10 August 10 - 16

for further information about the craft market 

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Biennalen for Kunsthåndværk & Design 2019

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The exhibition for the prestigious Danish award for the crafts - the Biennalen for Kunsthåndværk & Design - opened today at Nordatlantens Brygge / North Atlantic House in Copenhagen and continues until 5 May 2019.

Artists and designers selected to exhibit this year are:

Anett Biliczki
Helle Vibeke Jensen og Mette Saabye
Mariko Wada
Mia Lagerman
Signe Fensholt
Margrethe Odgaard
Ole Jensen
Kristine Mandsberg
Christina Christensen
Katrine Bidstrup
Kunstnergruppen RØRT: Ædelmetalformgiver og sygeplejerske Kristina Villadsen, Ædelmetalformgiver og arkitekt Maja Røhl, Ædelmetalformgiver og cand.comm. Maria Tsoskunoglu, Ædelmetalformgiver og grafiker Nanna Obel
Katrine Borup, Pernille Mouritzen og Bess Kristoffersen
Sarah Winther
Sarah Oakman og Maj-Britt Zelmer Olsen
Bitten Hegelund og Uffe Black
Bodil Manz og Jacob Manz
Charlotte Østergaard
Sisse Lee

Nordatlantens Brygge

Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere

Axel Salto Stentøjsmesteren / Axel Salto stoneware master

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A major exhibition of work by the artist, designer and ceramicist Axel Salto (1889 - 1961) opened in February at Øregaard Museum in Hellerup - just along the coast to the north of the city.

Salto studied painting at the Royal Academy and graduated in 1914.

By 1916 he was living in Paris where he met Picasso and Henri Matisse and on returning to Denmark he produced, edited and wrote for a short-lived but influential journal Klingen / The Blade that was published between 1917 and 1919.

He was a member of the Grønningen group of artists and one of The Four with Svend Johansen, Vilhelm Lundstrom and Karl Larsen who exhibited together between 1920 and 1929.

In the 1920s he began to design ceramics and his stoneware pieces were produced in the workshops of Carl Haller at Saxbo keramik in Frederiksberg and he also produced designs for porcelain by Bing & Grondahl with his work shown at the Paris exhibition in 1925.

This exhibition shows a full range of his ceramic works from small stoneware bowls with incised decoration or bold moulding with Japanese-style glazes to large-scale works with scenes from Classical mythology or stylised nature.

Paintings and strong and very confident ink and line-work drawings, including designs for the ceramics, show clearly the style Salto developed from his training as a painter.

He also worked with the book binder August Sandgren and a selection of designs for end papers are shown in an upper gallery which have a distinct feel of the 1930s with deep colours and stylised and small repeat patterns.

 

the exhibition continues at Øregaard Museum until 23 June 2019

Bauhaus #itsalldesign

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Designmuseum Danmark, Bredgade 68, Copenhagen

A major exhibition has opened at Designmuseum Danmark on the history, the staff and their teaching and the work of the Bauhaus school of architecture and design.

This reassessment was conceived by Vitra Design Museum and Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn to mark 100 years since the opening of the Bauhaus.

review to follow

the exhibition continues until 1 December 2019
Designmuseum Danmark

 

Bornholms Stemme / Voice of Bornholm

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glass by Morten Klitgaard

 

Bornholms Stemme / Voice of Bornholm - an exhibition on now at Officinet - the gallery of Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere in Bredgade in Copenhagen - has been curated and arranged by Bettina Køppe of the gallery Køppe Contemporary objects in Nexø on the island of Bornholm.

Bornholm is the large Danish Island in the Baltic that is about 35 kilometres off the south coast of Sweden. It's about 30 kilometres wide and possibly 40 kilometres from north to south and is renowned for it's landscape and for it's archaeology … with its position it controlled traffic through this part of the Baltic with major medieval fortresses. It's important not just for tourism but for artists and crafts makers who live here and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts schools of glass and ceramics are based on Bornholm. 

The exhibition has works from four major ceramicists - Michael Geertsen, Nynne Rosenkrantz Christiansen, Christina Schou Christensen, and Jeanette List Amstrup - pieces by the glass maker Morten Klitgaard - works in wood by Tyge Axel Holm and jewellery by Kaori Juzu and Per Suntum.

the exhibition continues at Officinet until 26 January 2019
there are profiles of the artists and the works on Køppe gallery site Voice of Bornholm
Køppe Contemporary Objects

detail of Barrel Ceramic by Chistina Schou Christensen - top right
Stoneage Decon ceramics and works on paper by Michael Geertsen - bottom left
ceramic by Nynne Ronsenkrantz Christiansen - bottom right

 

the first afternoon of the Christmas market at Designmuseum Danmark

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The Christmas market for design and crafts in the courtyard of Designmseum Danmark is organised as a collaboration between the museum and Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere - the Danish Association of Crafts and Designers. It is held on the first two weekends in December so on the 30th November and the 1st and 2nd December and on the 7th, 8th and 9th December 2018

Opening hours:
Friday: 12-17 
Saturday / Sunday: 10-17

The web site of Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere has a full list of the exhibitors.

Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere

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

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Signe Bailey at Frue Plads Marked

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This was another brilliant example of ingenuity on show at the market at Frue Plads.

Signe Bailey is a designer who works with ceramics and at the Frue Plads market she showed her tableware, ceramic jewellery and distinctive and very unusual designs including the Platters … a number of spines or spindles in fired clay held in holes in a flexible collar so the angles and spaces adapt to fruit placed on or within the spines.

But I was most taken by the Vue lamp because it illustrates all that is best about good design. 

There are lots of pendant lamps on the market …. most in glass or in metal or plastic and some even in wood or basketwork. The Vue lamp is in thin, self-coloured stoneware and the lamp demonstrates all the best qualities of the material including the fact that it is matt making it seem less intrusive and warmer and much more friendly. It might seem counterintuitive but a hard material like fired clay can look soft.

Obviously it is not transparent - like glass - but here that is seen as an advantage for the primary function of this lamp is as a downlighter when it is set over a table or work surface or it can be hung lower over a side table or close to a chair as a reading lamp.

The shape is deceptively simple and beautifully elegant … in terms of geometry a cone but with gently-curved convex sides; with an open base but cut off at an angle across the top.

But the really clever part is a simple slot that is cut running out from the centre of the top to the highest point of the truncated cone and then half way down the side and this takes the flex for the bulb holder inside the lamp. A retaining ring inside keeps the lamp in position at whichever point it passes through the slot. This means that the lamp can be adjusted - spun along line of the slot - to any position from pointing straight outwards horizontally and through any angle to pointing vertically straight down.

Signe Bailey has her own company - Clayform - but she was also a founding member of Den Danske Keramikfabrik - the ceramic factory on Bornholm - established recently by a co-operative of ceramicists to make available flexible production - in terms of the range of technical production methods and the ability to produce larger quantities - that are not always available to an independent ceramicist working in a small studio.

The lamp is produced in a soft grey or off white but the close link between the designer and the ceramic factory means that lamps in other colours can be commissioned.

The design could hardly be more minimal or hardly more sophisticated and that is an important point that has to be made. The very best of minimalist design is not simple. A designer cannot go straight to simple without going through an incredible and often lengthy process of trial and adaptation and adjustment to take an idea and realise it in terms of what might actually be a complicated or variable function with a form and style that is appropriate to the material and its qualities and then reduce that design to what is essential or rather to take it back to the essence of the idea. A minimalist design of this quality is not simple or quick or easy.

On a very busy afternoon at the market Signe very kindly demonstrated how the Vue lamp can be set at different angles and let me film her. Many thanks for your patience. The Clayform Facebook page has a good video that shows the Vue lamp being made in the factory. 

Clayform
Den Danske Keramikfabrik

 

Kunsthåndværkermarkedet / The Craft Market on Frue Plads in Copenhagen

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For the next three days, the annual craft market will be on Frue Plads - the square next to the cathedral in Copenhagen.

Organised by Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere / The Danish Association of Craft Workers and Designers, this is an opportunity to see and to buy some of the very best ceramics, glass and textiles made in Denmark.

a gallery of images of ceramics from the craft market

Thursday 9 August 12 - 19
Friday 10 August 10 - 19
Saturday 11 August 10 - 16

for further information about the craft market 

 

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

Frama for 3daysofdesign

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FRAMA studio and store in St. Pauls Apotek in Fredericiagade was open on the first evening of 3daysofdesign with people moving out onto the pavement to enjoy the warm weather.

This was an opportunity to show new additions to the collection - so a selection of cutlery in the ICHI range from Ole Palsby, now sold in the store, and a new tie in with home goods from the Japanese brand Ouur.

FRAMA

 

 
 

Normann for 3daysofdesign

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Design stores throughout the city put on special events for 3daysofdesign but Normann can always be relied on to have dramatic displays in their store in Østerbro.

For this year, the sharp pinks of last year have gone and for now the huge space of the main part of the store has been subdivided by massive grey curtains that drop the full height and form spaces for room-like displays but with mirrors and large bold stacks of blocks to display chairs and the effect is certainly theatrical.

 

 
 
 

 

The company took this opportunity - the events of 3daysofdesign - to launch their new Tivoli Collection. The most obvious pieces are a new take on traditional Danish wooden toys in bold colours but, more significant, is a new co-ordinated range of home accessories all taking as a starting point the inspiration of the pleasure gardens of Tivoli in Copenhagen. The launch was during 3daysofdesign but the full range will be available from the Autumn so ready for the build up to Christmas.

This is certainly an interesting development. Most furniture and design companies produce ranges of objects from novelty tableware to candleholders to purely decorative ornaments that supplement the main range of furniture and the more practical but often unexciting ranges of basic and practical household items like plates or bowls or flatware and if you know your design world you can spot what are obviously company colours or typical shapes or even predictable materials but here, with the Tivoli Collection, there is a very deliberate rethink of over 300 pieces to create coherence … so much so that Normann themselves are talking about the Tivoli Brand.

From the start, Normann were noted for the colours they used, usually on bold deliberately simple and uncluttered shapes for their furniture, and they were one of the first companies to mark a clear rejection of the more conservative Danish colour palette of the late 20th century and the first decade of this century … so they replaced pale natural colours with strong and deep colours for fabrics.

Maybe, with the Tivoli Collection - with the use of much more decoration and the use of gold and so on - Normann are again heading a different move away from the stripped back and uncluttered rooms normally associated with Scandinavian homes to something that many will feel reflects more complicated and more individual lives. To me it seems a bit like a return to the days of Biba in London and the very first collections of Habitat … not the simple designs from Scandinavia and Germany that Conran introduced to British homes but the Moroccan rugs, the rope plant holders, candles and brass watering cans that filled his stores and pulled people in. Essentially, looking at that change as a social historian, it was all about a break away from post-war austerity … about individuality and about young adults wanting to buy things that were interesting and hinted at excitement and travel and a broader more open viewpoint …so  perhaps the more ornate accessories from Normann mark that point where cool and rational Scandinavian design seemed too much or, rather, too little for getting away from austerity economics.

 

Normann ... launch of the Tivoli Collection

 

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

ARKET

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Part of Sunday afternoon was spent looking at the new ARKET store in the old post office building in Købmagergade in Copenhagen so it really was a bit of a fashion day with the time looking at the photographs from Danske magazine on Højbro Plads.

ARKET -  a new brand from the Swedish company H&M - opened at the beginning of September so just a week after their first store opened in Regent Street in London and ahead of Brussels and Munich.

One style magazine suggested the brand sits between & Other Stories and COS but I'm not sure exactly what that means although I could understand the point that the magazine went on to make that this is a brand for good-quality basics.

Over the last year or so in Copenhagen I have been to a couple of seminars or discussion sessions where some in the design world here have suggested that furniture and design companies could follow the example of the fashion industry by introducing a stronger sense of a "new season" for designs and move forward with more peripatetic designers and even more manufacture outside the country to keep prices down and give the marketing of design a stronger sense of momentum ... a stronger sense of novelty that the fashion industry has mastered so people should want to want to buy ... to stimulate sales.

I am trying to write a longer post on this but I was curious and interested to see on the H&M web site there is a section on sustainability not just for the materials they source and use but with advice for caring for clothes so they last longer and suggestions for recycling garments. For ARKET they give a short summary of the new brand as … 

“a modern-day market that offers essential products for men, women, children and the home, ARKET stores also include a café based on the New Nordic Food Manifesto. ARKET’s mission is to democratise quality through widely accessible, well-made, durable products, designed to be used and loved for a long time.”

It is the second sentence that is important. Could this actually be a major fashion company moving the other way - moving towards the marketing ethos of the best Scandinavian furniture and design companies who promote investment in quality rather than a relentless drive to create and then satisfy a customers desire for novelty?

 

 

 

Certainly it was interesting to see that the men's section does include cashmere jumpers and the jackets for their suits have proper buttonholes on the sleeve cuffs which shows that they really understand both the rules and the traditions of proper tailoring.

Shop fittings included the classic Artek Stool 60 by Alvar Aalto and the home section has the Sarpaneva Pot so both the store designers and the company buyers have a clear sense of Nordic design heritage.

The home section was good … it would actually be interesting to know who their buyer or director of home sales is because they have chosen well and it will be fascinating to see how the home section develops. Again, as with the clothes, these are good basics. And what was also interesting was that the selection of items had a different look and character that is distinct from homeware sold in the H&M stores.

At ARKET they have glass jugs with a pouring lip but straight sided, like a chemistry laboratory beaker, and a similar style of straight-sided jugs and mixing bowls in white china and there is an interesting range of enamelled cookware from Hario; glassware from Duralex and some good plain cushion covers; some simple linen and a range of those Swedish brushes by Iris Hantverk made in workshops for visually impaired workers.

For someone moving into their first unfurnished place then they could make this the first stop for … here's that word again … basics ... the good quality items that would be a good investment.

Back to general points - the historic building seems to have been restored and converted well, with a muted colour scheme of stone and grey. Packaging for underwear and so on was in plain, unbleached cardboard and the café sold fresh coffee and olive oil and other foodie things that were, again, in well-designed simple packaging … hardly revolutionary but never-the-less good to see.

The café was comfortable with well-priced coffee and some fantastic cardamom biscuits so, all in all, a good afternoon.

ARKET

 

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