It’s no secret that I think it’s a gigantic shortcoming that we don’t have an art centre for craft and design in Denmark. A place where the field can showcase all its diverse sides and cement and position Danish design and craft as the standard-bearer for cultural heritage, tradition and innovation that they truly are. It may come as a surprise that the visual arts field has several places with government funding, especially since Denmark is known internationally for being a design nation of the very best…

In recent years, the professional boundaries between visual arts, design and craft have become increasingly blurred, and it is no longer clear when something is one or the other. The fact that the boundaries between the disciplines have become more elastic should mean that the larger museums that exclusively present visual art should also open up to craft artists and designers. This is not happening, despite the fact that more and more visual artists are expressing their artistic practice in materials such as textiles or ceramics. The recent Venice Biennale manifested exactly this trend, with a preponderance of textile works that focussed on craft artists and local crafts.

An obvious idea

Perhaps one of the reasons for this still conservative distinction between museums and art centres is based on education? Whether you are trained as an artist or designer/craft artist respectively! When I try to define the difference between craft (and design) and art, I usually say that craft artist comes with the material first. That the material is the primary thing along with the experience of what you can do with it. When you master your material with precision and experience, the artistic superstructure often emerges from there. From the material (the practical) to the intellectual (abstract) capacity. As a visual artist, the idea is often at the forefront, with the material – the material through which the idea is evoked – being secondary. Of course, these are grossly caricatured interpretations, but they serve a purpose. Namely, that despite fluid boundaries and distinctions between the disciplines, there are some general characteristics between the two fields that should be maintained, cultivated and communicated despite the fluidity between them. Characteristics that are about history, tradition, material understanding, innovation and technology. This is why a centre for craft and design should be such an obvious idea.

The white cube with documentation and communication

In my opinion, an art gallery should be a neutral, rigorous space where the material merits of crafts and design can come into their own. A place so stripped of connotations and cultural heritage – a ‘white cube’ – that it doesn’t impose its context on what is being exhibited. I love warehouses and the whole industrial aesthetic and material history of the past that oozes out of beams and low-ceilinged rooms, but the time has come for craft artists to break free of the romantic staging and take the stage themselves. Show the world that this field has the potential to not only manage its cultural heritage, tradition and material understanding, but also to be a solid innovation partner in areas such as the green transition. An art centre that not only exhibits the field in interdisciplinary, thematic or material-specific sections, but also takes on the duty of dissemination and documentation! An art centre that combines physical form and written or visual communication and documentation like two birds with one sure and obvious stone, so that the exhibitions shown here are just as much documented and disseminated after the exhibitions are over. Like an archive of the contemporary scene that you can dive into afterwards for both educational and research purposes.

Why the area needs to be cultivated!

Why is it fundamental and vital to preserve, cultivate and communicate the characteristics that are special to craft and design?
It is because the field never stands still, but is always in motion. Towards new expressions. New ideas. New materials. New hybrids. New approaches. New ways of interpreting tradition. The duty of documentation in such an art centre could make up for the lack of coverage in the Danish media. In the Danish media landscape, there is no dissemination platform that covers the area even remotely. Everything takes place in smaller blobs and is often communicated and documented out of sheer will and heart – and if you’re lucky and even more enterprising, a little funding. Take Butik for Borddækning, the subsequent Udstillingssted for Tekstil (both closed artist-run exhibition spaces, ed.) and my own channel. The newspapers no longer cover the field in a professional and in-depth way, but instead end up presenting craft and design as material ‘must haves’ on a shopping page in the home section. The field is apparently not as important as architecture, literature and film, which still have their own professional reviewers, and where it is still fairly prestigious to carry the title. And reviewers who are well versed in the history, tradition and practitioners of their field.

That’s why a state-subsidised art centre with a duty to disseminate and document makes sense, if you ask me. That way, the expert staff on site could spend their time and skills documenting and communicating the field for the benefit of all, instead of fundraising for rent and electricity. A vibrant art gallery with a dense programme of quality exhibitions and related outreach, I’m pretty sure, will resonate in the cultural landscape and raise awareness of the field.
So craft artists and designers can climb the cultural ladder and become a field that is regarded with the trust and respect it deserves.
So craft artists and designers, for instance, can join the good and legitimate company when selecting practitioners for major decorative projects in public and commercial spaces, as major architectural projects often require.
So that craft and design becomes a field that more people understand the depth and meaning of and with.
That’s what I want for the field.

Therefore, it can only be too slow to set up a working group together with the leading forces in the Ministry of Culture and perhaps the Ministry of Business and Industry! As I’ve said before, no-one is saying that the art centre MUST be located in Copenhagen. As long as it exists and has a secure operation, it almost doesn’t matter where in the country it is located. The essential thing is that the scene exists so that the field has a starting point from which to exhibit, develop and innovate.

Theme: The scenes of crafts and design

In the coming months, Formkraft will focus on the scenes of the craft and design field. Among other things, look forward to a mapping of large and small exhibition spaces that showcase craft and design.

Read also the theme Design Exhibitions