MFA Degree Show 2019...no.19 and no.27

 

no.27...Aia Sofia Coverley Turan

Teeters

reliefs, sculpture and drawings

"Tenuous beings, so ethereal they could also be considered shaped symbols... 

They hang on the wall as if they were asleep, or carefully listening to what the walls had to say...

Leaving it undecided whether they are actually here, Aia Sofia Coverley Turan's Teeters convey a sense of inbetweenness."*

***

no.19... Maria Norholm Ramouk

Through the photographs I sense her impatience. She asks what I'm gonna use them for and adds that it's important to remember nostalgia. I answer that it's related to my research for the Afgang project.

textile, photography and ceramics

"Ways of being together, and the stories and objects holding that togetherness in place...

She has dug into her own family and local urban history through stories of coffee and the elements and objects related to its making, as a way of connecting and being with others.

Some of these stories are printed onto fabric and hung in the exhibition space alongside other related materials, interconnecting in the same loose manner as the disparate elements that make up the micro-narratives of our everyday life."*

"Stories are also invited; ceramic coffeemakers made by the artist are put into circulation in exchange for the tales told around their use in different everyday spaces. Norholm Ramouk is interested in what memories hold, what selected fragments are told and to whom. She is not digging for truth, but for the small fiction-truths that make up our recollections..."*

***

* Excerpts are from the artists' statements in the Afgang 2019/MFA Degree Show 2019 exhibition catalogue.

functionarty at the kunsthal

 a magazine shack/stand in every sense of the word, except this unique flippy-flappy cylindrical one functions as a reception and sales booth as well, while free-standing within the entrance foyer of the Kunsthal Charlottenborg, an exhibition hall for edgy contemporary art in the heart of Copenhagen...

this enormous exhibition building was added in 1883 to the 17th century Charlottenburg Palace and has always been affiliated with the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts, which stages its Afgang (MFA Degree Shows) here every year in April.

danish fun function

  the sly humour of the most mundane of basic amenities is clearly incorporated into the following installations...

on my last morning in Copenhagen I walked around the Christianshavn neighbourhood and was charmed by this trash receptacle topped by a dachshund sculpture... the plaque between dog and bin indicates

"Gravhundetype udfort af Geert Daae Funder

Statens Vaerksteder for Kunst og Handvaerk"

(google translation = Dachshund Type by Geert Daae Funder

State Workshops for Art and Craft)

public urination into a trough against a wall is better than public urination against a wall and onto the ground to free-flow any which way... a minimalist industrial solution for those in dire need in the party-hearty Meatpacking district!

angular origami-like sculpture protruding from a wall functions as precarious perches in the courtyard of the School of Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy... certainly not for lounging on in between classes!

one of the elegantly prominent sentry boxes at the Amalienborg Palace where the Royal Life Guards can hang their capes and gratefully take shelter in the rain... they always remind me of giant red crayons!

functional dane fun

 over the course of our wanderings around Copenhagen, the odd sculpture or object would catch my fancy and draw a closer look...

in a corner of the Great Hall inside the Copenhagen Radhus (City Hall) perches a lion's face with an open mouth to spout water into a solid stone basin, but "No drinkwater"!

a wooden side table sits obtrusively on a cobbled sidewalk off Blagards Plads in the Norrebro district, with a ceramic cactus to suggest its purpose...

the most exuberant ring of statuesque nymphs on a pedestal for a lamp post base in the Carlsberg compound...

a photo print of a sofa covers a box without fooling anyone enough to sit on it at the opening exhibition of the Copenhagen Architecture Festival

back to the dac

 

The Dansk Arkitektur Center (Danish Architecture Center) in the new BLOX complex was our first stop the day after we arrived in Copenhagen. We purchased our wristbands for the Copenhagen Architecture Festival and perused the cool design shop, but the spring sunshine was too enticing to stay indoors for long so I saved the exhibitions for a return visit...

The featured exhibition was "Irreplaceable Landscapes", an overview of the creative projects of Dorte Mandrup, one of Denmark's top tier architects with an international team. Mandrup's design vision considers "architecture as art and art as architecture" and incorporates ecological and heritage concerns as inherent aspects in every project.

"Conditions" for the Venice Biennale Architettura Exhibition in 2018

The Ilulissat Icefjord Centre in Greenland, located 250 km north of the Arctic circle

"Sailing Tower" on Aarhus Island

Neighbourhood Centre of Jemtelandsgade in Copenhagen

*****

The other exhibition presented at DAC was "It's Our Future", an immersive multi-media installation by young activists commanding attention to the plight of cities and their survival to sustain all who inhabit them.

DE NYE ARKITEKTER (The New Architects)
VI BYGGER FREMTIDEN (We are Building the Future)

*****

arkiquirky copenhagen, size extra large

 

this is as close as I came to Copenhill (Amager Resource Center), the waste to energy plant designed to showcase its dual purpose of a major power facility with a hilly roof surface for expending human energy on its artificial ski slope, hiking trails and climbing walls... 

an extra-large project by who else, but BIG

arkiquirky copenhagen, size large

 on our first day in Copenhagen we headed straight for the new home of the Dansk Arkitektur Center in the long awaited completion of BLOX in 2018, the glass-blocks stacked structure designed by OMA

the glass boxes straddle an existing roadway and stagger down towards the waterfront... other occupants of this hyper-glazed edifice include the Dansk Design Center, BLOX EATS cafe and restaurant, a fitness center, work spaces and residences

*****

a cluster of 5 cylindrical towers across from the Tivoli Gardens loom over the bustling streets... designed by Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter and completed in 2017, the curvilinear spaces of the photogenic AXEL Towers house offices, shops and restaurants

arkiquirky copenhagen, size medium

 Copenhagen central only yielded a few pseudo-quirky detached (single purpose or unused) medium-sized structures for me to record, but then again I have not walked along every street and entered into every courtyard to find more... yet!

a traditional half-timbered house sitting all out of sorts and sadly neglected in a laneway beside the Design Museum Denmark

a seemingly abandoned brick building on Vesterfaelledvej 56 bordering the Carlsberg city district development site (with the Carlsberg Tower in the background)

a 19th century Russian Orthodox church on Bredgade 53, Saint Alexander Nevsky Church with its three golden onion domes glowing in the setting sun was built by a Danish princess who married Czar Alexander III

not quite a bona fide quirky building but the well-executed trompe l'oeil of a triumphal arch is effectively eye-drawing and painted on a blank wall just outside the meatpacking district

perhaps the most well-known and most photographed elephants in a city where the elephant is the symbol of the kingdom of Denmark, the Elephant Gate/Tower to the Carlsberg brewery compound is a much visited site

the latest addition to the Copenhagen Zoo is the Panda House by the most famous of contemporary Danish architects Bjarke Ingels and his firm BIG, with its circular yin and yang divided enclosure that ensures each pampered giant panda will have his and her own exclusive privacy... until their arranged conjugal visits in a specially merged boudoir🙈

arkiquirky copenhagen, size extra small

 

the smallest and quirkiest architectural edifices that I came across in Copenhagen are rendered in clay and sit on shelves at the Designer Zoo gallery...

these precious maquette-like sculpture of imaginary buildings are created by VIBEKE RYTTER, an architect, painter, designer and ceramic artist from Roskilde