Art Profiles of the Month

Maja Stabel is one of many designers making one-of-a-kind ARTWEAR in Galleri 7, @majastabel 3D paper flower designs by Tove Svartkjønnli, @papir_lab

Art Profile of the Month, Norway A creative bubble for new artwork

In recent years, Trondheim has developed into a hotspot for art and visual design in Norway. The city was recently described in NY Times Travel Magazine as ‘one of Europe’s northernmost creative hubs’. Within the city’s expansive scene, Galleri 7 has become an important art and design destination.

By Rune Nyland | Photos: Galleri 7

Tania Winther - Artist and Galleri 7 owner.

A key element in Galleri 7’s philosophy is versatility. “We are a concept gallery and collaborating design studio, not a traditional gallery,” emphasises the owner, Tania Winther. She is herself a multimedia artist who designs and curates spaces and products, working at the intersection of art, design and product design.

What is art? “We are on a journey to re-invent new artwork and designs through monthly themed exhibitions. Using fashion, textiles, design elements and art. At Galleri 7 we present ARTWEAR, sculptures, wool felt and much more,” Winther explains.

Galleri 7 attracts and promotes a younger scope of artists and designers, who contribute to its dynamic creative atmosphere. A major focus of the gallery is supporting collaborations between the different artists and their artforms.

Customers embrace quality “Galleri 7 offers original products that can be bought onsite and ordered through its website. “We host everything from solo to group exhibitions as well as selling specially-curated boutique items in our small, niche shop and coffee lounge,” says Winther.

The latter part of 2022 will see a variety of exhibitions and artforms on show. Some will focus on painted works, whereas other exhibitions combine new design, sculpture and more. Quality is a keyword: “particularly amongst the younger generation interested in artwork and new design, there’s a tendency to value quality over quantity,” Winther outlines.

New ARTWEAR concept A new concept that Galleri 7 is promoting is ARTWEAR – specially-curated pieces of art that explore the realm of fashion, by local Norwegian designers who focus on sustainability rather than mainstreaming. The upcoming plans also include local pop-up exhibitions in Trondheim, and perhaps further afield. “Our aim is to help people see the possibilities with a curated space and allow ourselves to fill our walls with good art!” summarises Winther.

www.galleri7.com www.atelierwinther.no Instagram: @galleri_no7 Facebook: gallerinr7

Dodda Maggý, installation view.

Art Profile of the Month, Iceland Cross-pollination in Iceland’s contemporary art scene

Though the population of Reykjavik is just 250,000, its art scene is unusually vibrant. In the past 20 years, open studios, schools, academies and galleries have blossomed in the Icelandic capital. One such gallery, BERG Contemporary, has a particular feel for the pulse of the city. Showcasing new departures in Icelandic art alongside major global artists, BERG is a vivid platform for exchange, and a vital mouthpiece for Iceland in the international conversation.

By Lena Hunter

“The art scene in Reykjavik is very strong,” says Ingibjörg Jónsdóttir. “Here in the centre, there’s a high density of galleries and artist-run spaces. It’s an exciting dynamic.” Jónsdóttir – herself an artist trained in Iceland, Denmark and Mexico – is the founder of BERG Contemporary, one of Reykjavik’s most innovative exhibition spaces.

The 800-square-metre gallery resides in an old glass factory in the centre of the city, where it fills its halls with a diverse roster: emerging and established artists, young and old, from all over the world. “A little over half of my artists are Icelandic and the rest are from Japan, the USA, Poland, Holland and beyond,” says Jónsdóttir.

Internationalism is woven into the fabric of Iceland’s art history. “Many Icelandic artists study abroad. We are so few on a small island, that we tend to go abroad and bring influences back. For that reason, our contemporary art scene has always been in dialogue with others in Europe and the United States – especially as Iceland’s first art academy was only established in 1998,” she explains.

“We also have two guest apartments at the gallery, where we invite researchers, artists, curators and the like to stay. It’s part of our aim to facilitate discourse

Woody Vasulka. Glass - Lucifer’s Commission, Iris Print Series 1977-2003 Iris Print, 86.50h x 118w cm

around the works we show, on an international level.” Through this approach, where Icelandic and global perspectives are drawn together, and introspective and outward-looking angles are juxtaposed, BERG captures the essence of the small island’s artistic heritage.

Icelandic voices, emerging and established On 14 October, a new exhibition by Icelandic Þórdís Erla Zoëga will open – her debut at BERG. Exploring intimacy and connection, Zoëga’s work contrasts colourful and highly physical mediums with complex layering and abstract geometric forms that gesture toward the intangible realm of human perception. Take her 2020 solo exhibition Hyper Cyber: a study of our everyday digital interfaces – phones and computer screens – in which a series of neon and backlit wall hangings mimic the symbols, imagery and shapes of familiar digital objects, stripped of functionality.

Meanwhile, BERG’s newly built exhibition hall, optimised for video art and largescale installations will host its much-anticipated first show, fresh from its spell at this year’s 59th Venice Biennale, on 22 October. Sigurður Guðjónsson’s PERPETUAL MOTION is a mesmerising six-metre-tall multi-sensory sculpture, comprising two long, thin screens – one reaching upwards, totem-like, the other on the floor, stretching out from its base. A deep, machine rumbling sound accompanies unearthly video footage of metallic dust clinging in bristling, mosslike formations to a slowly rotating magnet. “The scale is arresting. The new hall’s high ceilings are ideally suited to a work of this stature. It’s a beautiful installation,” says Jónsdóttir.

World-renowned video art In fact, BERG is especially renowned for its video exhibitions. Not least because it’s the first and only gallery to represent the Czechoslovakian artist Woody Vasulka and his partner, Icelandic artist Steina Vasulka, who count among the early pioneers of the medium. During their highly experimental artistic career, the Vasulkas explored the inherent laws of the electronic image and its potential extension via analogue and digital tools. “In 1973, Woody was a professor at the first video department in the world, at the State University of New York in Buffalo. He and Steina are considered two of the most important artists in that field,” says Jónsdóttir.

In spring 2023, BERG will exhibit Woody Vasulka’s seminal installation The Brotherhood: A Series of Six Interactive Media Constructions. It will be the first time the work is reassembled in its entirety since it was commissioned in Tokyo in 1998. “This is a very important piece from an art-historical perspective. It has been exhibited in fragments in the years since, but never as a whole. For the last few years, we have been rebuilding the whole installation and it’ll be quite an event when it opens. I know many in the art world will be thrilled to see it,” says Jónsdóttir.

The expansion of the gallery will also pave the way for a permanent collection of Woody and Steina Vasulka’s work. It’s likely to become a touchstone for video artists and historians in Europe – an homage to the family-tree of the medium, just as BERG’s broader exhibitions are an homage to the continuous evolution of contemporary art in Iceland.

Bernd Koberling, Untitled, 2019 Watercolor on paper, 66h x 52w cm Sigurður Guðjónsson’s PERPETUAL MOTION. Photo: Ugo Carmeni Hulda Stefánsdóttir, After Effect, 2021 Acrylic on canvas, 130h x 110w cm

www.bergcontemporary.is Instagram: @bergcontemporary Facebook: bergcontemporary

Páll Haukur, Untitled (evan burrows), 2019 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 214h x 200w cm

Art Profile of the Month, Denmark The Path Ahead is Paved with Glass

At Pust Glas, the joy that comes from blowing glass is all but hot air. Here, Leif Møller Nielsen and Christina Hellevik have set up shop, an art studio and a life together, inviting visitors to experience an ancient craft being blown to life.

By Miriam Gradel

In spite of being home to only some 7,000 people, the historic market town of Ebeltoft, with its centuries-old wooden houses and cobblestone streets, offers a number of attractions and explorations of Danish history. The port is home to the world’s largest wooden warship, the 19th-century frigate Jylland, bringing reminiscences of Denmark’s maritime past and former naval strength to thousands of visitors annually. And just a stone’s throw away, art pieces from more than 700 artists from 40 different countries are on display at Glasmuseet, the world’s first museum of glass.

This is also where professional glass blowers Leif Møller Nielsen and Christina Hellevik first met. As graduates from Riksglasskolen, Sweden’s National School of Glass and Scandinavia’s only educational institution for professional glassblowing, they had both come to the museum’s workshop to build their

careers in the craft. Leif, a former lighting designer in Copenhagen, fell in love with glassblowing after a spontaneous visit to the school in Sweden. For Norwegian-born Christina, however, her passion for glassblowing is one of her earliest memories. “At age 12, I was asked what I wanted to become when I grew up, and I replied ‘glassblower’,” she reveals.

Today, they share not just a home, but also a livelihood via Pust Glas, a combined shop and glassblower’s studio in the centre of Ebeltoft. According to Leif, roughly 50 independent glass studios are currently in operation in Denmark, and around 200-300 practitioners make up the Danish leg of the global glassblower community. “In many ways, the global glassblowers’ community is similar to the surf culture, and we have friends all over the world,” says Leif. Indeed, for Leif and Christina, glass blowing is not so much a profession as a lifestyle. “Glass blowing has to be the way forward, and even when times get tough, you make it work,” says Christina. Leif agrees: “Glass blowing will always remain in focus, no matter the cost.”

Craftsmanship revived The practice of glassblowing dates back thousands of years, but spread around the world via the expansion of the Roman Empire. In the 1500s, Italy became an artistic centre for the production of glass, and throughout the 1700s and 1800s, the region of Bohemia led the way with distinctly more robust designs. As industrialisation and new technologies swept across Europe, glass production grew into an industry. As bigger manufacturers took up the market and the production facilities, the craft of glass blowing became geared towards high-volume production rather than artistic expression.

Then in the ‘50s and ‘60s, a movement of Modernist artists in America enabled the sharing of techniques and knowledge among individuals. The opportunity to produce glass in small studios grew steadily, and today, glass blowing has once again become an artistic practice in its own right. The craft even has its own version of Master Chef, the Canadian reality TV show Blown Away, which released its third season on Netflix this year.

Not just a job With Pust, Leif and Christina have created a space for endless artistic exploration. Throughout the year, they blow glass daily on-site, inviting visitors to take a peek through the looking glass and into their world. “Glass is made in the same way today as it was 2,000 years ago,” says Leif. “We give visitors a chance to experience the craft right in front of them, and get really close to an otherwise inaccessible material.”

Combining their individual styles and ideas, Leif and Christina have created a versatile range of joyful glassware ranging from vases and decanters to lamps and jewellery. With a focus on shape, colour and elegance, even mundane objects like onions and eggs are transformed into beautiful art pieces. “Glass, like ceramics, is a three-dimensional craft, but with glass, you are much more in the moment and the final result is instant,” explains Christina. In general, Pust’s pieces are simplistic in style and colour, with the exception of the organically shaped Nudies series, and Leif and Christina’s Kissing Vases.

The passion of Leif and Christina makes stepping into Pust much more than a shopping experience. As artists on-site work with full transparency, their personal expressions melt into their pieces, making way for a truly intimate art experience. “Pust is filled with our personal preferences, with our soul,” says Leif. “That’s what people get when they visit: a small part of us.”

Nudie

Christina and Leif. Photo: Businessfilm.dk

www.pustglas.dk Instagram: @pustglas Facebook: Pustglas Address: Adelgade 29E, Gården, 8400 Ebeltoft