Tag: Danish Tapestry

Exhibition News: “Lady Sings the Blues: Ane Henriksen” at the Design Museum in Denmark, through August 7th

May 4, 2011 0 Comment

Spread of Plates from Henriksen’s exhibition in Design Museum Denmark

Ane Henriksen’s work is the subject of a one-person exhibition at the Danish Museum of Art & Design in Copenhagen through August 07, 2011.  Henriksen “possesses a very rare degree of insight into how to utilize and master her medium.” observes Bodil Busk Laursen, Director of the Museum in the exhibition catalog of the same name, Lady Sings the Blues: Ane Henriksen. “In her pieces, there is an internal coherence, where the choice of materials, technique, and structure constitutes a most significant aspect of the work’s ultimate expression.”  Henriksen has been creating pictorial wall tapestries for 25 years. In doing so, the artist  “…with sensitive seismographic precision, has caught hold of painful nodes in the world, in nature and in human existence. Through these pieces, she has managed to redeem experiences that nobody evades,” Laursen observes.

BLACK & BLUE Ane Henriksen, silk warp, linen weft, weaving, 94.5″ x 72.75″; 246.5cm x 185.5cm, 2003

Henriksen “is building a bridge between personally endured pain and what has been learned from an existential and universally human experience,” writes Louise Manzanti, another of the catalog’s essayists.  Henriksen’s work, Black & Blue, is an example, as the artists explains: “A tie, a deep human intimacy, smashed to pieces. My aching, broken heart and body, drawn with a desperate line, like a bad tempered umbilical cord. Or alternatively an expression of hope, the fluttering of a butterfly, out into the intangible new space.”

a view from Ane Henriksen’s exhibition in Design Museum Denmark

Her installation work, A Swaddling Room, is “[A] holy communion consisting of 13 printed male chests constitutes a swaddling room for all the women who are searching and longing. A series of platters adds a kind of longing footnote from songs that creep in, remain — and resound, around and around…” Henriksen’s solo exhibition has been high on the Museum of Art & Design’s wish list for some time, according to Director Laursen. For those who cannot see it in Copenhagen, the exhibition catalog, Lady Sings the Blues: Ane Henriksen, is available from browngrotta arts. http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/b44.php

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

detail from Ane Henriksen’s catalog Lady Sings the Blues

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lady Sings the Blues: Ane Henriksen
Danish Museum of Art & Design
Bredgade 68 / 1260 København K
Phone 33 18 56 56
Email: info@kunstindustrimuseet.dk
http://designmuseum.dk/en/udstillinger/aktuelle-saerudstillinger/lady-sings-the-blues

Installation News: Grethe Sørenson for Tronrud Engineering in Norway

April 9, 2011 0 Comment

Greyscale+Colour by Grethe Sørensen photo by Bo Hovgaard

In 2010, Danish artist Grethe Sørensen was commissioned to produce a site-specific, large-scale work of textile art for Tronrud Engineering in Hønefoss, Norway. Tronrud Engineering specializes in developing machinery within the industrial automation area. The firm’s new location, designed by Norwegian architects Snøhetta (Snoarc), is situated at Eggemoen, the largest natural flat plateau in Norway.

Tronrud-Grey by Grethe Sørensen photo by Bo Hovgaard

Detail Greyscale by Grethe Sørensen photo by Bo Hovgaard

The work that resulted was Fjeld og li og fjord, a title taken from a quotation from a Danish song about Norwegian landscapes which means “mountain and meadow and fiord.” For the work’s motif, Sørensen took as a point of departure the contours of the landscape around Eggemoen, and rendered these contours in three variations on the same theme — Contour, Greyscale and Color — one theme for each floor in the building. The textiles are integrated into the structure of the building; placed opposite the entrance doors on three floors above each other covering walls of 15 square meters each. Each piece consists of 5 panels of jacquard-woven fabric.

Tronrud-Black by Grethe Sørensen photo by Bo Hovgaard

Detail-Contour by Greteh Sørensen photo by Bo Hovgaard

The first floor shows a color fantasy of the landscape theme. This image is the first impression to visitors and it may be seen as an expression of the creativity that is one of the main characteristics of Tronrud Engineering. The second floor has the Greyscale. From a distance it gives a three-dimensional impression of the landscape. On closer inspection, it’s evident that it is made up of different patterns in black and white – typical digital patterns. These patterns reference Norwegian a traditional knitting pattern, “lusekofte,” a Norwegian sweater pattern, dating from the 19th century. It features a black-and-white design, and the name means “lice jacket,” after the isolated black stitches. The Greyscale motif represents tradition combined with innovation as an expression of the versatility and wide-ranging skills represented by the people in the company. On the third floor is the pure black-and-white image of the landscape with contours and a line in red. This piece expresses the sharpness, seriousness and precision for which the firm is known.

Portrait of Grethe Sørensen¸photo by Bo Hovgaard

The samples were woven by Sørensen on a handloom with digital single-thread control. The final pieces were woven on an industrial jacquard loom at Digital Lab, at the Audax Textile Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands.