Venue 2
CHART Art Fair
Oslo Plads 1 – 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art – CHART design fair venue Introduction with Iben Bach Elmstrøm, Curator of CHART Design
A bit about CHART Design Fair (from their website)
CHART Design Fair presents ambitious contemporary collectible design from across the Nordic region, bringing together the best Nordic design galleries and emerging design studios. Focusing on unique contemporary works, limited edition pieces and collectibles, CHART Design Fair unites established designers and emerging talents whose practices and originality contribute to the development of the Nordic design scene.
In 2019, CHART Design Fair focused exclusively on contemporary practices in two parts: a presentation of prominent galleries and a display of emerging studios and collectives from across the region.
CHART Design Fair provides a unique look at the Nordic scene for collectible design, highlighting both internationally esteemed practitioners as well as local talents, by presenting leading design galleries, designers, artists, and craft makers. Exhibited in unison throughout the historic rooms of Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, CHART Design Fair gathers a cross section of the contemporary design scene, creating a platform to showcase the most original contemporary collectible Nordic design.
In 2019 CHART invited a select group of emerging studios and design collectives from the Nordic countries to present new unique works, many of which were shown for the first time. Studio presentations explored the intersection between art and design and exhibited the most compelling contemporary practitioners currently working across the region.
A bit about CHART Design Fair (from my notes)
This was one of my favourite visits on the trip. I really loved the curation of the fair in how it worked with the space and the work that was on display. Iben asked what would be our equivalent in the UK and Wing-Sie Chan (from a-n) replied with Collect in London. I visited Collect for the first time this year and I think CHART is more like the Open area at Collect. It felt like there’s more of a connection between art, craft and design in this fair so the language of it felt great for me. This year having been on the Crafts Council Hothouse programme spending time mostly with crafters / makers, it was quite a change to spend time away with artists in Denmark. For me it really highlighted my background in design and it’s an area that I would like to explore more in terms of having conversations between artists, crafters and designers.
Meeting with Martin Rosengaard, co-founder of Wooloo and Human Hotel
The Human Hotel story
2002. Back in school, in the days before Facebook (and even Myspace), we had the idea to create a social network for matching artists with exhibition organizers. This became Wooloo.org 2004 A few years later we moved to Berlin and opened up a shop in Mitte where you could request a new life.
(It took months before someone finally did!)
2006 We also ran an Avantgarde Dating service matching artists as couples based solely on their work. The idea was to challenge the concept of monogamy. 2007 In NYC we took experimental matching to the next level with our Life Exchange. Participants left a Chelsea townhouse with each others clothes, keys, wallets and lives. 2008 Back in Europe, we organized a festival that matched artists, creative projects and experimental architects with unused Berlin spaces.
(So much fun! Berlin was still full of cheap spaces back then.)
Our festival favourite was Fictive Days, a project that invited people to live as their preferred fictional character for 2 weeks…
(and stay in character of course!)
…and two of them ended up getting married – for real!
(They’re still married today)
2009 Then came the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen where we helped 3,000 activists find housing by matching them to local hosts.
(Here’s a Peruvian shaman conducting a ritual for Mother Earth with her Danish host)
2010 After that big task, we moved down in scale and asked a small Danish village to stop watching TV for a week and adopt their neighbor’s life instead.
(Watch that story unfold itself here)
Commissioned to create a work for the Manifesta 8 biennial, we invented a non-visual residency program and matched 5 international artists with 5 blind locals to live and produce work together in a completely dark space.
2012 – 15 The City of Copenhagen hired us to create a 3-year program for visiting artists to live with local hosts, collaborate on projects, and publicly exhibit the results inside their private homes.
2014
A science conference requested our help with hosting 30 scientific Ph.D students so we reached out to a large community of beekeepers and matched them together.
(This resulted in a ton of home-brewed mead)
2012
Oh, forgot to mention that we also invented a Spiritual Council that matched local politicians with clairvoyants helping them to look into the future.
(watch the film about this unique collaboration)
Or that we built a huge public candy machine and sold edible sweets made from the hair of bankers guilty of ‘insider trading’ during the financial crisis.
(That has nothing to do with matching people but what a trip it was to get their hair…)
Venue 3
Kunsthal Charlottenborg – CHART art fair venue
Nyhavn 2 – 1051, Copenhagen, Denmark
A bit about CHART Art Fair (from their website)
CHART Art Fair is the leading contemporary art fair in the Nordics, located at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in the heart of Copenhagen. The fair presents visitors with an exclusive collective presentation of the best galleries in the Nordic art scene. In providing audiences with a single entry point to the Nordic gallery scene, CHART creates an opportunity to experience the highest quality contemporary art in the Nordic region today.
Since its foundation in 2013, CHART Art Fair has established itself as the most prominent international platform for contemporary art galleries from across the Nordic region. Uniting tradition and innovation, CHART Art Fair challenges the boundaries between fair and exhibition.
CHART Art Fair builds on a foundation of collaboration, facilitating a collective presentation of internationally renowned contemporary art galleries. Exhibiting in unison at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, the fair rethinks the traditional art fair format by inviting collectors and visitors to experience a contemporary art fair in a setting that resembles an exhibition.
A bit about CHART Art Fair (from my notes)
This felt more like the type of art fair we would have in the UK such as The Manchester Contemporary for instance. Both in the way it was laid out and the type of work on show. It was very hot during our visit and although there were lots of fans around the venue it really didn’t invite you to stay there for very long. There were 2 main rooms with smaller spaces around the venue hosting other exhibits. It wasn’t very easy to find your way around and notice the smaller places such as installations or artists studios.
