Final Press Release: December 2014 After three fantastic years in the gallery space at Smallegade, Frederiksberg in Copenhagen the time has now come for Copenhagen Ceramics to move on and enter a new phase. 27 very different exhibitions have been shown over these three years and - as anyone having followed CC can testify – the great diversity of expressions within contemporary ceramics has been thoroughly demonstrated. The mediation and rendering visible of this has precisely been our intention and we are very thankful for the huge support and interest, that all our guests and followers have given to the project, in Denmark and internationally. The gallery space at the back premises of Smallegade 46, Frederiksberg in Copenhagen was closed by the end of season 2014 and the initiators of the Copenhagen Ceramics project are currently working to establish new ways of presenting contemporary ceramics in Denmark and internationally. You can follow news about the project by visiting our blog and sign up for newsletters by filling in the form under contact. http://copenhagenceramics.blogspot.dk/ Our website will stay active and here you will continuously be able to see all our exhibitions and read press releases for all 27 shows of 2012, 2013 and 2014. With very best regards Bente Skjøttgaard, Steen Ipsen og Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl Copenhagen Ceramics Press Archive 2013: Press Release: Ole Jensen and Claydies: The Opening 21 November – 14 December 2013 Rostrum and ashtray. Jugs for water and wine. Beer-mugs and wineglasses. All ceramics. Danish designers Ole Jensen and Claydies lovingly take the exhibition-opening itself in hand as the theme at their shared exhibition at Copenhagen Ceramics. You are in for quite a different opening experience. Not to be missed! Ceramists/ designers Ole Jensen and Claydies (Tine Broksø and Karen Kjældgård-Larsen) have each in their individual way always been working with things, that form part of a functional action or relate to a specific function. Conceptually, as well as concretely. The results have been utterly different. So, in their minds, they had no doubts that their collective exhibition at Copenhagen Ceramics should be about ceramics for use. In the process, the idea came up to take the phenomenon of the actual exhibition opening – with all its most typical accessories – as their pivotal point. They have divided the roles between them, without imposing on each other a particular idea of what the things should ’look like’. For the opening on 21 November all things will be set up in their right place, installed in the gallery as artistic objects. Followingly the artefacts will be put to use, very directly, in an interaction with a hopefully very cheerful audience, eager to celebrate the things themselves – and possibly – yet another successful season of Copenhagen Ceramics? Also, during all of the exhibition period the public will be invited to use and try out the various objects in the show. In more aspects, over the last decade and more, the designduo Claydies has been this dual-headed singular body ( their own expression). They pay homage to the small, fantastic trivialities of everyday life in both their design work and art projects. Over time, they have offered many surprising and original ways to look at functional ceramics. For example: Claydies and Gentlemen, their ceramic coiffure catwalk in 2003 at the then Gallery Nørby; Dogma 07, a ceramics manifesto, where cups and saucers, jugs and plates were all modelled while being blindfolded, and Tradition in Trance, an exhibition at Stavanger in Norway in 2008, where the duo, in their capacity of being New Nordic Food ambassadors, took up the traditional Danish ’rawmaterial’, slip-decorated earthenware, as their inspiration for new functional expressions. The very special merit of Claydies lies in their ability to transform many of their conceptual ideas of the art projects into design and production of useful items for contemporary everyday use. In ceramics as well as in other materials. Ole Jensen, doesn’t need a large scale presentation either. A look at his website clearly shows his extraordinary, highly varied contributions as designer of precisely the ordinary – in the proper sense of the word. His unusual talent is his ability to seriously reconsider all the truisms about the relationship between form and function and to come up with new interpretations in designs of conceptual clarity, humour and made with great love for his subject matter. This makes him – already long ago – one of the important innovators in our time of the daily functional artefacts. All works by Ole Jensen in this show were made during a guest professorship at Alfred University in New York State in the autumn of 2013, during which same period Claydies also made a visit to the college, holding a workshop and lecturing. It is, therefore, a very special pleasure indeed, to welcome professor Anne Currier, Chair of Division of Ceramic Art, School of Art and Design at Alfred University to Copenhagen, where she will be opening the exhibition on 21 November at 5 – 8 pm. Claydies and Ole Jensen at Copenhagen Ceramics 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 01) Claydies: Beer Mugs, stoneware, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 02) Ole Jensen: Liquor Bottles, stoneware, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 03) Claydies: Wine glasses in porcelain, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 04) Ole Jensen: Speaking podium h 32 cm, Ice bowl h 85 cm and Ashtray h 95 cm, stoneware 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 05) Claydies: Wine glasses in porcelain, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 06) Ole Jensen: Speaking podium h 32 cm, stoneware 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 07) Press Release Yasser Ballemans: The Next Parade 24 October – 16 November 2013 A chandelier spanning two meters, partly resting, partly suspended. An unfinished bridge. A UFO and a primeval animal figure. In his upcoming exhibition at Copenhagen Ceramics, Dutch artist Yasser Ballemans, will be showing a parade of ceramic sculptures, all seemingly recognizable – yet not quite. Dutch artist, Yasser Ballemans, is engaged with the carnival as sculptural and cultural manifestation. He is interested in the relationship between the identity of the individual participant and the disappearing into the mob. Over several years and in very different contexts, he has worked to explore the potential of art in such big popular events, e.g. at the traditional carnival of the Dutch/ Caribbean island of Curacao in collaboration with local students and psychiatric patients. Or at a parade in Amsterdam, where the human body was used as an expanded sculptural field in a staged social context. In the exhibition at Copenhagen Ceramics the parade is a series of ceramic figure-like structures, that occupy the space with a unique blend of temporality, as we know it well from assembled cardboard figures, but with the strong sense of permanence inherent in the fired ceramic material. Some of the sculptures are almost man-sized. They consist each of several cut-out, flat, geometric parts of clay stuck together by a seemingly simple ‘tongue-and-groove-joint’ principle. Paper cutting made in coarse stoneware, so to speak. A surprising universe of great and curious fragility that leaves you in doubt about which reality we are really in. Yasser Ballemans works are physical manifestations of a highly negotiable reality. Is the sculpture more real than the model of the sculpture? Is the body, in its carnival-posture and temporary outfit, less real in its claiming a new identity and new roles that are different from our everyday habits? The parade – the next parade, the crowd of people, who together insist on an otherness of the moment, provides us with the opportunity to reconsider who we are and on which parameters we normally build our lives. ‘I would like to create something uplifting, temporary and fantastic’, Yasser Ballemans says, ‘ I get inspiration from the firework-theatre in the Hofvijver in the Hague, a building from 1749 by Dutch architect Pieter de Swarts. It’s a grand, majestic and useless building, created for something as volatile as a fireworks event. And from other similar old ceremonial buildings. Buildings as manifestations of the role of art in society. Yasser Ballemans was educated at The School of Fine Art and Design St. Joost in Breda ( BA) and for his MA he studied at The Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, graduating in 2007. He works with sculpture, installation and performance and has exhibited widely in galleries, museums and in public space in Europe and Asia. In 2010 he won the Grand Prize at the International Biennale of Contemporary Ceramics in Vallauris, France. The works for the show at Copenhagen Ceramics have been made during a residency at the Danish Art Workshops in Copenhagen. Yasser Ballemans at Copenhagen Ceramics 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 01) Yasser Ballemans: The Next Parade Nos 2, 3 and 7, Stoneware, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 02) Yasser Ballemans: The Next Parade No 14, Stoneware, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 03) Yasser Ballemans: The Next Parade No. 1, 50x20x65 cm, stoneware, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 04) Yasser Ballemans: The Next Parade No. 1, close-up Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 05) Press Release SuperFormLab: showing SuperFormLab Digital Experiments in Clay 26 September – 19 October 2013 3D-printing in clay and ceramic objects shaped by your own sounds and movements! Digital form transferred via CNC-milling to ornamental ceramic wall-cladding. Brave New World… Students and their teacher at SuperFormLab, the new ceramic workshop of the School of Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, will be showing results of their investigations into the potential of combining digital technologies with ceramic materials. It is now possible to shape the most complex mathematical, virtual 3D objects through the use of advanced software-programs. And more than that – you can now get these objects out of the computer and be able to hold and experience them with your hands. Even made in clay. At SuperFormLab, workshop for the new education in Ceramic Design at the School of Design, the integration of digital technologies in relation to the ceramic materials and techniques is a main focus area. For its next exhibition at the gallery, Copenhagen Ceramics has invited students from SuperFormLab and their teacher, ceramicist PhD Flemming Tvede Hansen, to show some of the results of their experimentation in this new, rapidly developing field. The exhibition will be demonstrating how digitally based technologies can be used creatively both in the context of functional ceramic products and applied as ceramic elements in architecture. By showing how the digital form is created as well as its transformation into the physical material, the exhibition will demonstrate what exactly these techniques can offer in working artistically with ceramics. SuperFormLab was established in 2011 in connection with the relocation of Danmarks Designskole to campus Holmen - and the subsequent merging with the Schools of Architecture and Conservation. The education substitutes the former department of Ceramics and Glass and is based on material experimentation as pivotal point for developing new designs. The hands-on experience of the students is central, providing the ground from where innovation of design and new artistic expression can develop out of a deeper understanding of the material qualities in relation to both new and classic technical possibilities, notably the digitally controlled technologies. The digital software is regarded as a material in its own right, to be explored artistically and technically in parallel with the ceramic materials themselves. The education is structured as a 3-year bachelor program, followed by two years of master studies. The courses are offered equally to students from other design disciplines, e.g. industrial design. Teaching is mainly in English as the program is attended by a relatively large group of non-Danish students, who seek exactly this combination of being able to work innovatively with the ceramic materials based on a Scandinavian tradition, whether in developing new functional ware or in renewing the tradition of the use of ceramic materials in buildings. Exhibiting students are Mirja Amdrup Laugesen, Kajsa Lannemyr, Anne Marie Bisgaard, Mia Maya Christophersen and Hanieh Heidarabadi. Lecturer PHD, Flemming Tvede Hansen, will be showing experiments with digital form based on voice-sound and bodily movement. The exhibition will be opened by Head of Institute, associate professor Troels Degn Johansson, School of Design. On Saturday 28 September at 2 pm Copenhagen Ceramics invites to an artist talk with SuperFormLab students and Flemming Tvede Hansen, including a demo of 3D-printing directly in clay. SuperFormLab at Copenhagen Ceramics 2013. Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 01) Flemming Tvede Hansen: Experiments with capturing movements in a computer-simulated fluid and the movements of the hand in the air. Porcelain and 3d print in plastic. Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 02) Mia Maya Christophersen, Mirja Amdrup Laugesen and Kajsa Lannemyr: Experiments with the interplay between the pattern from CNC-milling and the artistic effects of the ceramic glaze in a relief. Stoneware. Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 03) Anne Marie Bisgaard: Experiments with the interplay between the pattern from CNC-milling and the artistic effects of the ceramic glaze in a relief. Stoneware. Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 04) Mirja Amdrup Laugesen and Kajsa Lannemyr: Experiments with the interplay between the pattern from CNC-milling and the artistic effects of the ceramic glaze in a relief.  Stoneware Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 05) SuperFormLab: Digital experiments with CNC milling and 3D print in clay. Stoneware and porcelain, 2013. Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 06) Press Release Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen and Christina Schou Christensen: Software & Glorified Ingratitude 29 August – 21 September 2013 What happens when you fold, stretch and over-fire clay: when the efflorescence of teeming forms unfolds? Young Danish ceramic artists Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen and Christina Schou Christensen invite the viewer to partake in a playful, mind-opening journey exploring the possibilities of clay. Presenting the unspoiled honesty of the materials, Christina Schou Christensen and Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen show reluctance to let their objects be defined as crafts in the conventional sense and are manifestly not limited by restrictions, guidelines and ordinary, traditional regulations. Following two busy years since her graduation in 2011, where she has been manifesting herself strongly on the international and Danish scene with works where the fluidity of thick glazes shapes the objects in a spectacular manner, Christina Schou Christensen now returns to a technique involving flat pieces of clay that she meticulously molds and shapes into cone-shaped, round objects. At first glance, the works seem somewhat uniform, but upon closer inspection each craft’s autonomy is apparent. Presented as a single, fragile group the abstract and fabulating works have an unmistakable femininity embedded, executed with a gentleness of expression. Almost like pieces of candy, each swirling object exudes a tactile, velvet-like softness that speaks to the viewer’s sweet tooth. Untamed, immediate, liberating, and tangible at the same time, this unpretentious immediacy is a key component of the individual objects as well as their overall look. Viewed together, Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen’s works form a distorted narrative that includes figurative structures, teeth, a tennis ball, small turrets and foaming abstract sculptures largely reminiscent of an overflow of dishwashing soap. The immediate story is twisted beyond recognition. The objects take shape depending on her mood during the creative process, while her thorough knowledge of the material creates a space to play, twist and stretch expected approaches. This creates an almost anarchic openness to what comes out of the kiln and a deliberate ignorance about how the final outcome will be. The process is thus constantly shifting back and forth from a tightly controlled work to a display of chaos and restlessness. Pontoppidan Pedersen appreciates the despicable: by elevating it on a pedestal, she cultivates the beauty in ugliness and allows room for error, embracing the mistakes – a dogma from which quite unique, opaque wonders unfold. Both artists have each created new works, which deviate from tradition and break the rules, while also exalting the flaws and unpredictability as a form of art themselves. The final outcome is strikingly different from other contemporary ceramic artists on the Danish ceramics- and art scene. The exhibition focuses on experimentation, playing with material, format and proportions, with a sensuality and tactility explored in both artists' objects. This cutting edge use of materials proves that Schou Christensen and Pontoppidan Pedersen are some of the most remarkable new sculptors in the field. The exhibition embodies the new aesthetics of contemporary ceramics, deviating from tradition and challenging the viewer to relate to the field in a markedly innovative way. Christina Schou Christensen already shows an impressive exhibition career, e.g.: Solo Award exhibition at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition 2013, Copenhagen; MindCrafts, Salone di Mobile, Milan 2013; Collect, Saatchi Gallery, London 2012 ( w. Galerie Sofie Lachaerts); Biennial of Crafts and Design 2012, Koldinghus, DK. In 2013 she was awarded the Annie and Otto Johs. Detlefs Travel scholarship for talented young ceramists. Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen attracted much attention with her degree show from KADK Bornholm in 2012. She was selected for EDGE, a juried show on campus in Copenhagen of outstanding student projects. She has since been showing e.g. at: Good Bones, Copenhagen City Hall 2013; Terres – Copenhagen Ceramics Invites, Galerie Maria Lund, Paris 2013. Her works are in the collection of Erik Veistrup. On Saturday 31 August at 2 pm Copenhagen Ceramics invites to an artist talk with the artists at the gallery. Text: Henriette Noermark & CC Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen and Christina Schou Christensen at Copenhagen Ceramics Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 01) Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen: Illuminated Ingratitude, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 02) Christina Schou Christensen: Doodle Blue, h. 29 cm, earthenware, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 03) Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen: Nickel Dripping from Heights Undreamed, 26 x 28 x 40cm, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 04) Christina Schou Christensen: Soft Pink, h. 40 cm, earthenware, 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 05)

Press Release On show at GALERIE MARIA LUND 48 rue de Turenne 75003 Paris Terres – Copenhagen Ceramics Invites Turi Heisselberg Pedersen, Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl, Morten Løbner Espersen, Andreas Schulenburg, Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen, Kristine Tillge Lund, Emmanuel Boos, Bente Skjøttgaard, Yasser Ballemans, Marianne Nielsen, Farida Le Suavé, Karen Bennicke, Esben Klemann, Wayne Fischer, Akiko Hoshina 22 June – 14 September 2013* As a selected project within the context of Nouvelles Vagues –The season of young curators at the PALAIS DE TOKYO in Paris, curator Margaux Brugvin in close collaboration with Copenhagen Ceramics presents a show of 15 artists at GALERIE MARIA LUND, demonstrating the broad spectrum of artistic expressions of the contemporary ceramic medium Copenhagen Ceramics is pleased to announce this extraordinary exhibition, which is the result of a close collaboration with Parisian Galerie Maria Lund and curator Margaux Brugvin. The show is selected by PALAIS DE TOKYO in Paris as one of a series of gallery exhibitions in and around Paris for the context of Nouvelles Vagues – The Season of Young Curators. The show TERRES – COPENHAGEN CERAMICS INVITES wants to pay homage to the initiative behind Copenhagen Ceramics by giving even more visibility to the scene of contemporary ceramics, that the Copenhagen gallery is highlighting through its programme, whether the artists are Danish or from elsewhere. The aim is to show how, at the age of the digital and dematerialization, clay - profoundly linked to the cultural tradition and the concept of handwork - continues to inspire, to reinvent itself, and pushes artists toward new experimentations. The fifteen selected artists work in Denmark, the Netherlands, England, the United States, as well as in France. TERRES puts forward an overview of the diversity and quality of artists working with ceramics, whether they come from a fine arts or applied arts training. Thus, different artistic approaches are used by the selected artists: The sensuality of glazes Some explore the richness and sensuality of the material, the glazing, the engobes, leaning towards an abstract expressionism: the stoneware interlacings of Bente Skjøttgaard evoke cotton-wool clouds of rain, bushes or mineral formations; the glazing of the Magic Mushrooms of Morten Løbner Espersen take on psychedelic aspects; the organic, sensual and distant ‘bodies’ of Turi Heisselberg Pedersen are covered in a second skin of clay with a matte, velvety and luminous aspect ; the formats of Emmanuel Boos are a pretext to explore the unfathomable and jubilatory matter that is glaze ; Wayne Fischer’s white and fleshy, eminently erotic shapes call for the touch, the caress, suggesting a certain mystery. Modelling formalism The works of other artists, on the contrary, deal with formal abstraction, to which this infinitely flexible medium lends itself particularly well: thus, Karen Bennicke elaborates absurd architectures where creative freedom and mathematical rigor cohabitate; Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl analyses a series of ‘ordinary’, industrial objects, in a purely plastic approach; Esben Klemann creates series of light structures, « impossible » given the weight of the earth, where the systematics of the series is disrupted by the uncertainty of chemical reactions. The cultural link to ceramics Some very directly, but with humour and lightness - attack the preconceptions in which their medium is tangled up: the functional dimension of industrial ceramics is explored in the ready-mades and diversions of Kristine Tillge Lund, thus revealing the omnipresence of the material in our daily life; the decorative aspects of earth are unravelled by Marianne Nielsen, who, while isolating traditional decorative elements, transforms them into objects of study of our cultural relationship to Nature; the kitsch of the popular use of ceramics is mocked by Andreas Schulenburg, whose protean work analyses the notion of good and bad taste by taking a different view on the bucolic world of the traditional figurine; Yasser Ballemans, finally, creates works that ‘pretend’ to have a function, a use : the last in date are a series of porcelain carts, lopsided and playful, that take inspiration in the carnival and overflow with references to art history. The field of intimacy The artists of this last category have made of clay a vehicle for intimate confessions: Akiko Hoshina invents rituals to transform the clothes, symbols of a love story, into relics; Pernille Pontoppidan creates an intuitive process of composite works that encompass entire cabinets of curiosities, accumulations of potentials stories, fragments of stories and emotions; and finally, the flesh-colored specimens of Farida Le Suavé explore the intimacy of the body in its moving and sensual clumsiness, curves and cavities, embodying the desperate bursts to exchange with the outside. Publications: An issue of PALAIS, the PALAIS DE TOKYO magazine will be devoted to all the exhibitions selected for Nouvelle vague - the season of young curators. The GALERIE MARIA LUND is preparing a publication of a catalogue dedicated to TERRES, including a text by philosopher Yves Michaud and presenting each of the exhibited artists. For more information or the provision of visuals: www.copenhagenceramics.com/html/press_2013.html or please contact Galerie Maria Lund: Maria Lund, Marion Bahy-Baril or Margaux Brugvin. GALERIE MARIA LUND 48 rue de Turenne 75003 Paris T (+33) 01 42 76 00 33 M (+33) 06 61 15 99 91 E galerie@marialund.com www.marialund.com Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12 noon – 7pm Please note: Annual closure of GALERIE MARIA LUND: 28 July to 2 September 2013 TERRES – Copenhagen Ceramics Invites – at Galerie Maria Lund, Paris 2013 From left: Margaux Brugvin, Marion Bahy-Baril, Bente Skjøttgaard, Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl, Maria Lund, Esben Klemann, Marianne Nielsen, Steen Ipsen, Emmanuel Boos, Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen, Yasser Ballemans, Karen Bennicke. Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 01) TERRES – Copenhagen Ceramics Invites – at Galerie Maria Lund, Paris 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 02) TERRES – Copenhagen Ceramics Invites – at Galerie Maria Lund, Paris 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 03) TERRES – Copenhagen Ceramics Invites – at Galerie Maria Lund, Paris 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 04) TERRES – Copenhagen Ceramics Invites – at Galerie Maria Lund, Paris 2013 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 05) Yasser Ballemans: Carrus Navalis, porcelain, 2012 Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 06) Pernille Pontoppidan Pedersen: Red Drip with Fortress, stoneware, earthenware, porcelain and glaze, 2013. Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 07) Andreas Schulenburg: Mosquito, 20 x 38 x 24 cm and Smacked Mosquito, 28 x 40 x 3 cm, 2011 Photo Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 08) Kristine Tillge Lund: Vase, 170 x 80 cm, earthenware and lead, 2011 Photo Dorte Krogh (image 09) Bente Skjøttgaard: Turbulence no 1331, 40 x 35 x 33 cm, stoneware, 2013 Photo Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 10) Marianne Nielsen: Daffodil, 32 cm, hand built  glazed stoneware, 2013 Photo Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 11)

In her upcoming exhibition Kristine Tillge Lund examines craft practice and production of everyday ceramic products and challenges the concepts of the skilled craftsperson at work. What happens if you let the material take over, seizing the moments of failure?

Kristine Tillge Lunds work focuses on clay and ceramics, both as a physical material and how it is situated within history and culture. Her search to uncover inherent possible new interpretations in some of our most familiar everyday objects or materials has led to stunning and breathtakingly beautiful works in recent years. Poetic visions about essential qualities of clay and ceramic materials as much as our cultural habits around them.

In her solo exhibition at Copenhagen Ceramics, Tillge Lund again presents objects derived from everyday ceramic products, and examines the relationship with craft practice and production. She sets her point of departure for the show:

’Modern Ceramic production is pure, precise and uniform, and the skilled craftsperson is taught to eliminate mistakes and have complete control over the process. When an error in fabrication occurs, contradictions between the processed object and the rawness of the material itself appear in the final object’.

It is these moments of failure that Tillge Lund is working with. She begins the production where the material or prototype has failed, or she chooses to stop the production in various unfinished phases and let the inherent properties of the material take over.

The objects in the exhibition are unexpected results of experiments, but also suggest the time and labour behind a production line.

Seen from an applied artist point of view Tillge Lund gives herself and the material an impossible frame to work within, and what stands out is the nature and power of the material itself.

Since her graduation from the Royal College of Art in London in 2008, Kristine Tillge Lund has made an extraordinary strong and artistically consistent position for herself on the scene of international contemporary ceramics. Her shows always display uncompromising conceptual precision in combination with excellent craftsmanship as her trademark.

Among her recent exhibitions are ( 2012)
: Ann Linnemann Gallery, Copenhagen; Toves Galleri, Copenhagen; Orders ( with Inhabitants), Copenhagen Ceramics; Phoenix Landscapes, 77m2 Aarhus, Denmark; ( 2011): Living with Ceramics, Ampersand House, Brussels, Belgium, Across, Ny Tap, Carlsberg, Copenhagen; (2010): KOM, Cypresgallerie, Leuven, Belgium, Camard & Associes, Paris, France. In 2013 she was awarded the Annie and Otto Johs. Detlefs Ceramic Prize, given to excellent young talents working in the medium.

Copenhagen Ceramics invites to an artist talk with Kristine Tillge Lund at the gallery on Saturday, June 1 at 2 pm.

Wednesday — Friday: 1 – 5 pm
Saturday:  12 am – 4 pm



Press Release
Lone Skov Madsen and Per Ahlmann:
Checkpoint
2 – 25 May 2013

Dogmatic dialogue. Objects that mirror each other in space. From the ceiling, against the wall and the floor. Ceramists Lone Skov Madsen and Per Ahlmann join forces at Copenhagen Ceramics in an exhibition based on the contrast between a set brief and the unpredictability of the creative process.

For their joint exhibition Danish ceramicists Per Ahlmann and Lone Skov Madsen have made a set of common rules to play by. The concept consists in that their works are mirroring each other in a defined spatial context. The exhibition space is divided equally between them and they both respond to ten agreed forms of presentation: works on a shelf, works hanging from the ceiling or leaning against the wall, etc. The intention is to activate all planes of the space, thereby creating a room for dialogue that leaves space for and is preconditioned by the individuality of each.

The works of Lone Skov Madsen are often created in long, consecutive series. There is a distinct connection between the consistency of her investigations of surfaces, material and ornament, and the endeavours behind her exploration of formal systems. She is occupied by repetitions and the rhythmic variations of shape. Her approach is cool and rational, which almost unexpectedly, leads to highly sensual and interesting tactile results.

In this exhibition she will be showing small series and singular works, testing various techniques. Forms vary from smooth simplicity to budded structures. Certain objects have diffuse dots by
the thousands sprinkled on the surfaces almost like a skin; on others net-patterns are rising up
high. Glazes are likewise put at play on both wall plates as well as on sculptural forms.

Further, on the occasion that it is now twenty years since her wall plates were first shown in Copenhagen, Lone Skov Madsen will be presenting a new series of these at Copenhagen Ceramics.

In Per Ahlmann’s ongoing project – the ceramic sculpture – he investigates how three-dimensional objects in our immediate surroundings, more or less intentionally, are present and relates to their environment. As he states:

‘The spectrum of the field of sculpture is enormous. If I would try to categorize my position, it would be one of working with sculpture that is about sculpture. I consider a sculpture to be successful if it
is self-reliant. When it appears as a representation of something you ought to recognize, while being completely abstract. For a sculpture to evoke this sentiment it must contain credibility and possess a natural obviousness in the juxtapositions of the single sculptural elements and the transitions between these parts’.

On his working with the clay itself, Per Ahlmann says: ‘Technically, I have great pleasure in ‘tightening up’ a form. It’s fantastic to build up a volume of clay quite carelessly and then, in the leather-hard state, to smooth it out with tools, water, sponge, etc, until the surface becomes delicate to the touch. But the opposite of this is attractive too: the traces of a quick elaboration. It may actually be this very characteristic of clay, that I value the most – the way in which ‘time’ so easily is transmitted to and manifests itself in this compliant material’.

The artists have both exhibited widely in Denmark and internationally and their works are included in several museums and private collections. Lone Skov Madsen has shown at e.g. ‘Freestyle, North Gallery, Copenhagen. 2012; XXI International Biennale of Vallauris, France, 2010; ”Time Out”, Designmuseum Danmark, 2009; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, 2008. Her works are at Designmuseum Danmark; International Museum of Ceramic Art, Grimmerhus, DK; Trapholt Art Museum, DK, and in the private collections of Erik Veistrup and The Annie and Otto Johs. Detlefs Foundation.

Per Ahlmann has exhibited at e.g. Galleri Pagter, Kolding DK, 2012; "Across", Ny Tap Carlsberg, Copenhagen, 2010; “Emergens”, International Museum of Ceramic Art ,Grimmerhus DK, 2009. His works are at Designmuseum Danmark; Ny Carlsberg Foundation, DK; Danish National Arts Council; International Museum of Ceramic Art, Grimmerhus; Le Musée Magnelli, Musée de la Ceramique, Vallauris, France and in the collections of Erik Veistrup and Annie and Otto Johs. Detlefs Foundation.

Copenhagen Ceramics invites to an artist talk with the artists on Saturday, May 4 at 2pm at the gallery.

Wednesday — Friday: 1 – 5 pm
Saturday:  12 am – 4 pm



Press Release
Rose Eken, Andreas Schulenburg, Kaspar Bonnén and Fie Norsker:
He who laughs last (Den der Ler sidst)
4 — 27 April 2013

Ceramic stories: Animal figures in awkward situations; a rock musician’s paraphernalia (early morning after the concert); heads with rooms, walls and doors; possible remnants from a site of sacrifice. Visual artists Andreas Schulenburg, Rose Eken, Kaspar Bonnén and Fie Norsker in a new exhibition at Copenhagen Ceramics.

Danish visual artists, Andreas Schulenburg, Rose Eken, Kaspar Bonnén and Fie Norsker all work in various media within a figurative, imaginative and narrative universe. For this exhibition they are each showing ceramic figures ‘typical’ of their oeuvre.

Andreas Schulenburg shows animal figures in staged, awkward and ‘getting the wrong end of the stick’ situations. A rooster mating with a watering can instead of a hen. A tiger forcing its way into the living room to mate with the sofa. The works are ‘off’ comments on what is logical and correct.

Rose Eken is zooming in on objects of the city nightlife – setting off from specific things, places and events. Objects, also frequently to be found around the (rock) musician, such as the ashtray, cigarette pack, the half-emptied beer-bottle, the roll of gaffer tape, the sunglasses, etc. Her restaging emphasizes the mythological and cliché-ridden character of these objects, all stored in our collective memory. Simultaneously, the transformation from one material to another adds a subtle, yet clumsy unfunctionality to the objects, forcing us to rediscover and investigate again.

With Kaspar Bonnén we find, amongst other things, a series of ceramic heads with incorporated rooms, walls and doors. A blend of space and human being, where the head is a stage – a place for various possible events. Fie Norsker builds up a ‘landscape’ of figures, evoking remnants of some sort from a sacrificial site. Totem-figures, a foot, vases, buckets, etc. All the objects have been covered with a bronze glaze and appear with modelled figures and patterns.

All four artists are well-established names on the current art-scene with long exhibition-careers, both in Denmark and internationally. To mention a few: The room can never be closed, Brandts Klædefabrik, DK (Kaspar Bonnén, solo-exhibition, 2010); Time Out Of Mind, Overgaden – Institute for Contemporary Art, DK (Rose Eken, solo show, 2010); With access from the Ground, Gallery Factory, Korea. (Fie Norsker, solo exhibition, 2012); Crime Scene, a solo presentation at Volta 8, Basel (with SPECTA) (Andreas Schulenburger, 2012).

On Saturday, 6 April 2013 Copenhagen Ceramics invites to an artist talk with the artists at 2 pm in the gallery.


Rose Eken, Fie Norsker, Andreas Schulenburg and Kasper Kaum Bonnén at Copenhagen Ceramics
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 01)


Rose Eken: 'The Fiddlers stand' (incl. orange/soda) glazed paper clay, 30x30x75 cm, 2010
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 02)


Fie Norsker: No title, clay with glaze, 50x26 cm, 2013
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 03)

Andreas Schulenburg: Koala Lamp 20x22 cm, Pig's Head 25x25 cm and Pigs Ass 23x23 cm
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 04)


Rose Eken: Marlboro, 12 x 7 x 2 cm, paper clay, 2012 
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 05)


Fie Norsker: Face, 30 x 24 cm, clay with glaze, 2013
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 06)


Andreas Schulenburg: The wasp, 22 x 23 x 20 cm, stoneware, 2011
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 07)


Kasper Kaum Bonnén: Head, black clay, 2007
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 08)



Copenhagen Ceramics
Smallegade 46, baghuset 2. sal tv
2000 Frederiksberg                                            
Denmark

Contact: Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl
martin@copenhagenceramics.com

Wednesday — Friday: 1 – 5 pm
Saturday:  12 am – 4 pm

Press Release
Emmanuel Boos and Esben Klemann:
Systematic Uncertainty
28.02 – 23.03 2013

In ceramics the unknown is a fate for the practitioner. Emmanuel Boos and Esben both welcome unpredictability. Moreover they are provoking it. They share a playful and experimental approach to the ceramic material and their works are bred from a great curiosity towards the processes of the material

Emmanuel Boos, now living in London, was born and grew up in France. He trained with Jean Girel, one of the big names in French ceramics, known for his works with beautiful textural glazes. Emmanuel Boos equally places the glazes at the centre of his artistic practice, but goes further. He questions the classic hierarchy, where the materials as such are regarded as undifferentiated, depending on being given form, morphe, which traditionally is considered the essential part.

For Boos form is often a pretext, a playground for glazes to develop on. His interest lies with the poetic character and sensuality of the glaze, both in a direct sense as the fusion of basic materials and in the symbolic potential of this. His works are not conceptually based; rather they express a search for beauty, that strives for a form of aesthetic contemplation appealing firstly to our senses and our emotions.

For his first show in Denmark, Emmanuel Boos will be showing both plinth and wall pieces. His intent is to draw the viewer into the glaze, inviting us to meander in its depth through poetic reverie. His forms oscillate between mysterious enclosed objects – minerals with an underlying organic presence – and thin sheets of porcelain like canvases gently folding and developing into space.

The expressive heartland in Esben Klemann’s work is clearly defined by his interest in architecture, construction and material, and a constant urge to further develop the making-processes, that are essential for the expression of the final works.

On ceramics, he states: ’ People envisage a lot of different things when you use the word ceramics. Images of ordinary domestic items, giant-sized-vessels, reliefs by Asger Jorn, etc. Through changes in work-methods, tools and placements, I strive to add new images to the picture, believing that ceramics has the potential to offer something more and different. I purposely draw my experiences from other sculptural areas into the ceramic process, to push it all into new directions’.

’You may label my work non-thematic or abstract, or see it as a formal language which communicates by establishing artistically elaborated spaces and objects, that in contrast to the ordinary, inject vitality into things.

Klemann builds up the spatial form-curve by testing, seeing and testing again. In his experiments with the difficult material, clay, he challenges gravity in the ceramics works, trying to do things that seemingly are not possible to do. Since this is always intriguing – ceramics or not.

Emmanuel Boos has exhibited widely, f.inst. with solo shows at Jousse Entreprise in Paris: Come Back, Baby, Come Back! (2011), Crac! Boum! Hue! (2005); Design Miami-Basel (2012), PAD London, FIAC Paris (2007–2010). Other shows include: Jerwood Makers Open, London, Belfast, Edinburgh (2011–2012), La Scène Française, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (2010).

Esben Klemann’s works are in collections of e.g. The Danish Arts Foundation, Djurhuus Collection. Recent exhibitions include: Ann Linnemann Studio Gallery, Copenhagen (2011), Puls Contemporary Ceramics, Bruxelles (2009); Bornholm Art Museum, DK, 2009 (solo show); Henningsen Contemporary, Copenhagen (2007) and ”Match Race" at Art Museum of North Jutland, Ålborg, DK (2007).


On Saturday 2 March 2013 at 2 pm, Copenhagen Ceramics invites to an artist talk with both artists in the gallery.


Emmanuel Boos and Esben Klemann at Copenhagen Ceramics
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image o1)


Emmanuel Boos: Folded slab with base, 2012, 36 x 39 x 12 cm, paper porcelain with glaze NSD 07/04/2.
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image o2)


Esben Klemann: No title, 10 x 35 x 35 cm, stoneware, 2013.
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image o3)


Emmanuel Boos: "Sheet" and "Box" with copper red glaze 2013
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image o4)


Esben Klemann: No title, stoneware, 2013
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image o5)




Copenhagen Ceramics
Smallegade 46, baghuset 2. sal tv
2000 Frederiksberg                                            
Denmark

Contact: Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl
martin@copenhagenceramics.com

Wednesday — Friday: 1 – 5 pm
Saturday:  12 am – 4 pm

Press Release
Morten Løbner Espersen: Magic Mushrooms
Bente Hansen: Lemon-blue Memories
31.01 – 23.02 2013

In its first show of 2013, Copenhagen Ceramics has the pleasure of presenting new works by two strong names in the firmament of Danish ceramics. With the acid-trip of Morten Løbner Espersen’s forms and glazes and Bente Hansen taking us on a journey into all-new mutations of her well-known formal universe, the scene is set for a great bath for the senses.

Magic Mushrooms

In this exhibition ceramist Morten Løbner Espersen, for the first time, shows works, that are not interpretations of the classic vessels of ceramic history.

The new series, arriving fresh from the kiln, he calls Magic Mushrooms.
’The series is an acid-trip’, he states, ’they are mind-expanding’.

The abstract, organic formal language of these pieces offers many possible interpretations.The works still adhere to the recognizable ceramic dogma: they are modelled, fired, glazed and refired again and again. They are simple shapes, coming alive in the firing, but contrary to most of Espersen’s ceramic oeuvre, these figures are sketchy, rapidly and unpretentiously modelled. Morten Løbner Espersen did not wish for formal splendour, he wants to play and entertain. In the new works he has let himself go and improvised.

Is the Moon the same? Is the Year as before?

For this show Bente Hansen has worked with two different ceramic expressions:

In one part she circles around the amorphous; her works are softly formed, organic creatures, that appear in contrast to the pure, oval cylinders, which constitute the other group of works. Always with her characteristic precision and formal strength. The pieces emerge out the flat plane. Like the sandy sediment whipped up into spatial elements. Conquering space.

Bente Hansen reflects on the new works: ‘I am wondering, though curiously affirmed, how my formal universe keeps repeating itself in ever-new mutations. Might they be new answers to old questions? As a track? Not one – but many. Sometimes distinct, at other times disappearing, always in transformation. In my works I wish to surprise, to seduce. However, first of all I wish to liberate my visions of form and colours and the indelicacies of the imagination. As with poems of Jens August Schade ( Danish poet, 1920 -1978 ) on the seductiveness of art, we let ourselves be seduced – by the beauty of the erotic – by the electrifying touch.

Hell Dissolves Itself
Lemon – blue Memories
The Rhythmic Darkness of the Waves

Both ceramists have long established exhibition-careers with representations in a series of public collections worldwide:

Bente Hansen’s works are at: e.g.The National Museum, Stockholm; The Danish Arts Foundation; Designmuseum Danmark; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The Palmer Museum, Pennsylvania, USA and Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg. Most recently, in 2012, she exhibited at Ann Linnemann Studio Gallery in Copenhagen.

Works by Morten Løbner Espersen are at: e.g. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Birmingham Museum of Art, US; The Danish Arts Foundation; Designmuseum Danmark; Trapholt Museum of Arts, DK; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; 
The National Museum, Stockholm;
 The Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden. Lately he has shown at Jason Jacques Gallery in New York. In connection with his solo show, Horror Vacui, at Trapholt Museum of Art in the summer of 2012, he published the book of the same title at Rhodos publishers.

Bente Hansen and Morten Løbner Espersen at Copenhagen Ceramics
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image o1)


Morten Løbner Espersen, Magic Mushrooms 2013
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image o2)


Bente Hansen, Pjaltefisk 2013
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image o3)


Morten Løbner Espersen: MM#56, h 36 cm x Ø 12 cm, stoneware and glaze, 2013
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image o4)


Bente Hansen: The Sea Witch, h 35 x w 45 x d 16 cm, stoneware, 2013
Photo: Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (image 05)



Copenhagen Ceramics
Smallegade 46, baghuset 2. sal tv
2000 Frederiksberg                                            

Contact: Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl
Mobile: 2728 5452
martin@copenhagenceramics.com

Wednesday — Friday: 1 – 5 pm
Saturday:  12 am – 4 pm