BY CHRISTINE MINAS | APRIL 23, 2018
As the lucky recipient of a Danish Arts Foundation research grant, I had the opportunity to attend Copenhagen Art Week in 2017. My good friend Angelika Dahl, founder of Art Marking Sense, generously introduced me to her network of artists, dealers and curators, as well as the art fairs CHART and Code. What follows are some of the highlights from my time in Copenhagen.
ARTIST TO WATCH: KASPAR OPPEN SAMUELSEN
2017, gouache, glue, graphite, canvas and paper collage on canvas, 66 x 46½ inches (168 x 118 cm) each.
During 2017 both of these works were part of a group show entitled Horses at V1 Gallery in Copenhagen.
Educated at Goldsmith’s College in London and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Kaspar Samuelsen is a gifted draftsman with a broad visual vocabulary. While his graceful lines bring to mind Victorian artist Aubrey Beardsley, the inventiveness of his compositions and treatment of collage are all perfectly contemporary. Kaspar’s work plays with ideas of the subconscious, dreams and pantomime, blurring the boundary between the real and the imagined.
Through a recent fellowship at Danish Art Workshops (SVK), Kaspar has started to work with metal for the first time. To make the sculptural works, Kaspar works freehand with a plasma cutter whose flame temperature is over 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. He then welds the pieces together himself.
While his new metal sculptures retain the collaged elements of his 2D works, their uncanny nature is enhanced once rendered in 3D.
In 2018 Kaspar will have a solo show in Viborg Kunsthal and a solo show with Gallery Jacob Bjørn in Aarhus, both in Denmark. He’s definitely an artist to watch. You can see more of Kaspar’s work here.
EDITION COPENHAGEN
One of my favorite sources of high quality affordable artwork are editioned prints produced by some of the world’s best printshops. Edition Copenhagen (EC) is on the top of that list. Founded in 1959, EC is a lithographic workshop located in the picturesque neighborhood of Christianshavn.
According to EC’s three partners, Rasmus Urwald, Dannie Vieten and Peter Wissing Sørensen, their goal is “to create a haven where the artist can roam freely in order to continue developing the printing process and to pass on the knowledge of lithography as a unique medium of artistic expression.”
Image source: @EditionCopenhagen
Visit Edition Copenhagen’s website here or find them on Instagram @EditionCopenhagen.