NET GRID STUCCO Esben Klemann Mar-Apr 2020

NET GRID STUCCO
Esben Klemann
Exhibition 5 March – 24 April 2020

Visual artist challenges piece, space, method and material freely at all levels.

Esben Klemann works equally freely inquiring with architectural pieces for urban spaces, private homes and exhibitions. Where he is always challenged by the properties of the material and the desire to test limits on its ability, whether it be in concrete or ceramics. He possesses a preference for space storytelling and the desire to 'do something completely different, often'.

The exhibition shows method-material research in ceramic construction and procedural premise. The works can be experienced as constructions seen in relation to space, and as experiments with clay, often applied only by transparent glaze to close the surfaces and give shine. Gravity has been used offensively as a molding tool and contains the clear traces of the making process.

Esben Klemann is basically open to any means that 'works'. The core area is clearly defined by his interest in architecture, construction and material, as well as by a constant desire to further develop processes that are crucial to the expression of the finished pieces.

Esben Klemann: "The sum of my experiences throws ideas out in the air and challenges me to add physical bodies that work.
They continuously materialize in the studio, waiting there in piles, as I think about it and decide if I want to continue with the idea.
On a positive note, I then do a few small works, like a kind of sample balloons, and then go up in scale and number.
That way I build up my spatial form curve to try, see and try. "

He challenges GRAVITATION of ceramics, in which he does things that apparently can not be done. Because it is interesting - ceramics or not.

A piece on the floor works differently than the piece on the wall - just as there is a big difference between whether an object is displayed in an exhibition or whether the piece is built for and in a certain location.

When Klemann works the area between the ceiling and the wall, he comes to the place where a stucco may be installed. He therefore encounter with the audience's expectations of sculptural form at this location, which is often something like a Roman ornamentation or curving flower arrangements.

People's normal notion of how stucco looks is contested, and at the same time, the space is sculpturally challenged, where otherwise there was only room for artwork traditionally on the wall, counter tops and shelves.

In the urban space, Esben Klemann has used the concrete element that can be said to form an architectural framework for people.

Concrete is inexpensive, sturdy and flexible for blockage - but is usually seen only as a square block with flat sides.
Redesign creates new unexpected ideas on how a concrete element can act and look. By 'copying' the blockage element, which typically stands for roadworks in the cityscape, and adding relief, it can even become beautiful.
Still flexible as a mobile concrete block, as a work of art it is liberated from the stiff anchoring of traditional sculpture to its pedestal.
It is natural to move the piece and use it in new contexts.

ESBEN KLEMANN – About my work:
I have worked with clay for so long and so much that a dedicated ceramic development channel runs naturally in my head 24-7.
What happens if I do this? - or, the one I just made was very good, I will have to develop it further.
I sweep up visual details everywhere I go and pour them into my imagination, which then boils them together in new ways to what is my expression.
A term gathered under headings, such as challenging the clay using new methods, cultivating the pattern, the repetition in grid structures as a neutral way of forming.
Characterized by interest in construction, architecture and hellishness.

PIECE
PROCESS
MATERIAL
METHOD

ESBEN KLEMANN (b. 1972) graduated from the Royal Danish Art Academy in Copenhagen in 2002.
EXHIBITIONS Galerie Maria Lund, Paris 2019/17/13. Biennale internationale de céramique de Châteauroux, France 2017. Art 15, London 2015. Vejen Art Museum, solo 2014. Bornholm Art Museum 2013. Gravity, solo, Ann Linnemann Gallery 2012. Sculpture by the Sea, Aarhus 2011. A Gallery, solo. Across, Tappehallerne Carlsberg 2010.
COMMISSIONS Invited by the Danish Art Foundation. Hans Rømer School, Åkirkeby. Vanløse Kulturhus. Pascal Denmark A/S, Århus. Bornholm Art Museum 2009. Adventure Garden, Odense Council. Teknological Institute, Taastrup. The Bank, Miami USA.
GRANTS Danish Art Foundation Production Funding 2017/15, Artist Stipend 2016/14. Dansk Tennisfond's residency award, Gudhjem 2016. Danish Art Council Production Award 2015. Danmarks Nationalbank's Anniversary Award, 2014/12/11. Grosserer L.F. Fogthts Award 2013. Danish Art Council Award 2012/11. Artists Honorary Award 2011. COLLECTIONS Bornholm Art Museum, Vejen Art Museum..
REPRESENTED Galerie Maria Lund, Paris. www.esbenklemann.dk

Photos are previous exhibitions and pieces


Grateful thanks to The Danish Art Foundation for project funding in 2020.

BIOGRAPHY – ESBEN KLEMANN
Born in 1972.

EDUCATION
1996-02 Det Kongelige Kunstakademi. København.
1990-92 Det Jyske Kunstakademi. Århus.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2021 Koloristerne. Den Frie Udstillingsbygning. København.
2020 Betonafspæringsklodser. Ofelia Plads. København.
2019 Galerie Maria Lund. Paris. (m. Nicolai Howalt)
2019 Birthe Lauersen Art Agency. København.
2018 Stedsspecifik betonskulptur til Odder Højskole.
2017 Biennale internationale de céramique de Châteauroux. Frankrig.
2017 Soil. SixtyEigt Art Institute. København.
2017 Galerie Maria Lund. Paris. (m. Nicolai Howalt)
2017 ENGROS. Grøntorvet. Valby.
2016 Kant til Kant. Ikast Kunstpakhus (m. Lisbeth Eugine Rasmussen)
2015 Art 15. London.
2015 Galleri Houcon (m. Malene Bach). Frederiksberg.
2014 Vejen Kunstmuseum. Solo.
2013 Egnsbeton. Betonelementer og stedspecifikke. Vejen By og Kommune.
2013 Koldt Vand i Blodet. Bornholms Kunstmuseum.
2013 Galerie Marie Lund. Paris.
2013 “Systematic Uncertainty” Copenhagen Ceramics. København.
2013 AW! Skulpturelt projektsamarb. m. skulptør Marianne Jørgensen.
Den Frie Udstillingsbygning.
1212 Multiple. Skulpturi. København.
2012 Huset i Asnæs.
2012 Tyngdekraft. Solo. Ann Linnemann Galleri. København.
2011 Sculpture by the Sea. Århus.
2010 AGallery. Solo. København.
2010 Art Copenhagen. Forum. København.
2010 På Tværs. Carlsberg Tappehaller. København.
2010 Tilløb Til Rum. Clausens Kunsthandel. København.
2010 Puls Contemporary Ceramics. Belgien.

GRANTS - fra 2010
2017 Statens Kunstfond Produktionsstøtte.
2016 Arbejdslegat. Statens Kunstfond.
2016 Dansk Tennisfond. Legatbolig i Gudhjem.
2015 Kunstrådets Produktionspulje.
2014 Nationalbankens Jubilæumslegat af 1998.
2014 Statens Kunstfond. Arbejdslegat.
2013 Grosserer L.F. Fogthts Fond.
2012 Kunstrådets Billedkunstudvalg.
2012 Nationalbankens Jubilæumslegat af 1998.
2011 Kunstnernes Legat af 1971. Æreslegat.
2011 Kunstrådets Billedkunstudvalg.
2011 Nationalbankens Jubilæumslegat af 1968.

SELECTED COMMISIONS
2018 Rundkørsel projekt. Bornholms Regionskommune.
2017 Element opsat i Fly ved Skive. Viborg Kunsthal.
2016/17 Inviteret af Statens Kunstfond. Hans Rømer Skolen, Åkirkeby.
2016/17 Rundkørsels skulptur. Bornholms Kommune.
2016 Tilføjelse til Bunkers. Odder Højskole.
2013 Egnsbeton. 15 betonværker. Vejen Kommune.
2010 To Betonbarriere. Københavns Kommunes Billedkunstudvalg.
Vanløse Kulturhus.
2010 Indgangsparti/ Paschal – Danmark A/S. Århus.
2009 Betonelement, Bornholms Kunstmuseum.

EARTH .. Jan-Feb 2020

EARTH
Lea Mi Engholm & Vinni Hedegaard Frederiksen
Exhibition 16 January – 29 February 2020

About looking at the raw material CLAY of our planet - seeing into the ground.

The exhibition is an aesthetic tale of the uncontrollable forces that manifest when the elements of nature are given space. Impurities in the clay are maintained and exploited. Sensuality appears of the soil.
The exhibitors investigate the elemental and basic material of our blue planet. From the material CLAY, originating from the Danish ground, extremes in ceramic processes are explored.

LEA MI ENGHOLM challenges the properties of the clay, where a well-developed curious investigative approach characterizes her works that appear to have coincidentally emerged as a natural process or a play with material and method.

VINNI HEDEGAARD FREDERIKSEN has philosophical thinking and sensory memory as the basis for her ceramic work, which revolves around locality and material as a natural raw material to support a particular story and idea.

OUR TIME is for materiality, sensuality and sustainable thinking, not just to analyze how industry and the consumer can save nature's resources, but also to look down into the earth, to explore the valuable raw material that is said to have created the first humans.
CLAY is found everywhere on Earth and consists of variable elements that depend on where on the globe it is deposited. Traders and ceramists travelled around the world to find new materials that could enhance the home's functional products or aesthetics. Ceramists were the first alchemists and chemists who constantly researched to transform cheap raw materials into valuable products. Porcelain was called the White Gold.

IN THE DANISH GROUND, the clay contains especially much chalk and iron.
Clay is malleable and plastic, but becomes hard and weather resistant when fired at high temperature. In the farmer's houses are used unfired, porous and hard-fired brick, crude clay walls and floors, depending on the need for durability, moisture, heat, and insulation.
TODAY, clay is used for and in many products from bricks, concrete and tiles to new sharp knives, industrial products and contemporary art.

There is research into new potential properties and qualities of the material.
We are moving forward in the name of development, and fortunately, occasionally still look back on the earlier wise use of natural resources, where now modern architects rediscover clay and straw walls, local materials for 3D-printing etc.

AGAIN, IT HAS BECOME IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER and use the ingenious inventions and tradition-rich experiences.
It is sustainable to find clever new ways through old paths, basic and artistic ideas to the understanding of nature.

Lea Mi Engholm
My approach and thinking about the work process itself has basically been the same for a long time.
It is a curious and investigative work process in which I search and challenge the properties of the clay.

I always like to come across a detail or technique that I choose to pursue. Along the way, perhaps another detail arises, which is worth investigating.
In this way I move around and dive into the material substance.
The special and 'unusual' of my works is that I base the material on a way in which the works' more or less' make themselves'.
I give the process a push in a given direction and then let it live its own life. The method and the process create the work, but I am the one who chooses when the process stops and the work is done.

The way the material is handled captures the viewer's curiosity about the ceramic.
The pieces contain something recognizable, foreign and rough, but at the same time something cultivated. Pieces that, through structures and details, tell a story about the material CLAY.

My inspiration, background and references are simply material and work process. Most often it is through the work process that the idea for the work arises.
The sculptural objects are of stoneware, earthenware and porcelain.
(Photos of previous exhibitions and pieces)

LEA MI ENGHOLM (b. 1977) educated at Designskolen-Kolding 2001-06, study-year HDK Högskolen for Design og Kunsthåndværk, Göteborg, Sweden. SELECTED EXHIBITIONS Sophienholm, Kgs. Lyngby; Johannes Larsen Museet, Kerteminde; KunstCenter Silkeborg Bad, 2019. Clay Keramikmuseum Danmark 2018. SAK Kunstbygning, Svendborg 2019,18,17. Versus, Clay Keramikmuseum Danmark, 2017. En bolig til planten, Officinet, København & Odsherred 2016. Charlottenborg Forårsudstilling, Biennalen for Kunsthåndværk og Design, Carlsberg Byen; NNCA, Grand Palais, Paris 2015. Ann Linnemann Galleri, København, Mesterværker 2018, Intensity m Hans Munck Andersen 2013. GRANTS & AWARDS Statens Kunstfond, projektstøtte 2019, arbejdslegat 2018,17.16,15, præmiering af udstillinger Talisman 2017, Meditations 2012. Herman Madsens og Charlotte Henriksens Mindelegat 2018. Annie & Otto Johs. Detlefs´Keramikpris til Versus 2016. Medlem af kunstnergruppen Versus og Den Fynske Forårsudstilling. www.leamiengholm.dk

Vinni Hedegaard Frederiksen
I collect raw materials from the Danish ground. Soil and clay formed during the last ice age as well as volcanic ash collected in mole graves.

I research these unprocessed materials in a ceramic process and apply them to a processed clay, stoneware and porcelain. Impurities in the clay are maintained and exploited.
It is an aesthetic story about the borderland between the controlled action and the uncontrollable forces, which are reflected when natural elements are set free. A poetic perception of the raw basic soil.
In my childhood, I spent countless hours on a tractor with my dad.
Here I loved looking down into the newly plowed soil.
The plow cuts through the black unprocessed earth, turning soil and producing new forms. Clean shiny surfaces occurs as a contrast to the raw land. Powerful, but with exalted calm. Repetition after repetition. The black earth with shades verging on the infinite.
The works are moving in a borderland between the earth's life force and autumn dark melancholy end.
A memory of looking into the ground. During the break from the complex, the plow field has its sensible justification. Images of the memory of the earth, with references to the beginning. This experience of the world's materiality is the starting point for a series of new works.
In recent years, my pieces have been concept and material based.
I am now concerned with a balance between the design language, the material's own conditions and the presence of the hand in the finished work. Maintaining an immediacy in the finished piece. The works have been prepared through a physical dialogue with the material - where I have repeated the same movements over and over again.
They refer to the basic, bordering on the existential. Asking questions for today's complex society.
A sensuous abstraction of a personal recollection.
(Photos of previous exhibitions and pieces)

VINNI HEDEGAARD FREDERIKSEN (b. 1975) educated at Designskolen Kolding, 1999-2004; Edinburgh College of Art, 2003. SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 'Lad leret tale` Projektrum AAKA 2019. CLAY Danmarks Keramikmuseum, Den levende krukke – 'Nøjsom', 2019. REFORM18 Design Biennale, Munkeruphus, The Silence of Everyday – Repetition of Materiality; Officinet, 'Game of Whispers' 2018. ATRIUM - 'Rå nøjsomhed', Kongegårdren, Korsør; Ny Kastet, 2017. Biennalen for Kunsthåndværk og Design, Museumsbygningen, LER, 2017. Officinet, Bredgade, 'Landskabning', 2016. Biennalen for Kunsthåndværk og Design 2015 'Stilhed'. Kunstnernes Sommerudstilling KS15, Janus Bygningen, 2015. KP14, Kunsthal Århus, 'Plovfure', 2014.

Grateful thanks to The Danish Art Foundation for project funding in 2020.