CHART Art Fair, Copenaghen. Interview with Director Julie Quottrup Silbermann
Neo Nordic Architecture challenged the white cube gallery format with a flexible wall system which lets the daylight through to illuminate the artworks – while at night it can be lighten up with an adjustable lighting system
Neo Nordic Architecture: rediscovering the Scandinavian identity at CHART 2024
In recent years Nordic architecture has gained international attention and reputation for its minimalistic, refined style. The Neo Nordic has merged the rediscovery of Scandinavian tradition and cultural identity with an ecological approach – including the use of local and raw materials – and a design vision which addresses the needs of the community. Neo Nordic Architecture is the theme of the tenth edition of CHART Architecture within CHART 2024’s cultural program.
«CHART Architecture is turning ten this year and we decided to change the competition one more time to create only one big construction – explains CHART’s Director Julie Quottrup Silbermann. We launched the open call under the theme Neo Nordic Architecture and set up a high-profile jury featuring Søren Pihlmann, finalist in the first edition of the competition, Tyra Dokkedahl, founder of Seriously Fun, and Jakob Brandtberg Knudsen, Dean of Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy. They reviewed all the applications and the winner ended up being a group of four architects».
CHART Architecture turns ten
«CHART is located at Charlottenborg, home of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, which has two courtyards where since the beginning we wished to create an innovative and culturally inspiring place devoted to the community. Ten years ago, we started this as a competition for architecture students who could submit their ideas for a pavilion through an open call. Two years ago, when I was appointed director, I decided to direct the open call to newly established architecture firms and architects who have graduated within the past five/seven years with a practical knowledge about construction. Last year we received about seventy proposals; the theme was European Bauhaus and after the fair, all five finalist projects have been rebuilt all over Denmark», says Quottrup Silbermann.
Instead of hosting a bar or a restaurant, as it was for the past couple of years, this year’s pavilion has an exhibition function. On occasion of CHART 2024 – taking place from 29 August – 01 September – the participating architects were asked to challenge the traditional white cube space by creating a new gallery format which combines architecture with the arts, the fair’s main focus.
Breeze, the winning project of CHART Architecture 2024
The team behind Breeze – Emil Dupuis Bernild, Mikkel Harboe Wolff, Jonas Sarantaris and Shwan Soran Ali – came up with an exhibition space made up of local rough materials and waste items. The structure was built with innovative construction principles. All the elements were joined together with an interlocking system without resorting to screws or nails, while the rainproof canopy is made from sails recovered from a local manufacturer.
The winning proposal addressed the Neo Nordic Architecture theme by blending innovation and tradition, and aesthetics and functionality, claims Quottrup Silbermann: «They challenged the white cube gallery format, but when you look at it you know immediately that it is a space designed for exhibitions. The details are crazy: they created a flexible wall system which lets the daylight through to illuminate the artworks, while at night it can be lighten up with an adjustable lighting system. Being CHART a member of the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC), sustainability was also a crucial aspect for the jury: at the end of the fair nothing goes to waste as everything can be taken apart, removed, and rebuilt in another location. The final construction is going to be a 12×12 mt pavilion taking up a lot of space in the courtyard».
Start Collecting with CHART for a more democratic, accessible art market
The Breeze pavilion will host the second edition of Start Collecting with CHART, a curated selling exhibition featuring artworks priced under €3.000 by newly established or well-established artists. The idea of Start Collecting with CHART stemmed from a growing awareness of the elitism of the art market among the art world professionals working at CHART: «We asked ourselves “How can we make the art world a little more transparent, direct and open for people?”. I have a background in the gallery sector and as art advisor, and I feel there is an extreme and growing interest in start collecting. In fact, buying art is a sort of extension of our own personality, we want the things we surround ourselves with to reflect who we are. So, why don’t we show that you do not have to be extremely rich to be a collector, but you can actually start from a lower point? Last year, for instance, we featured works by Ragnar Kjartansson, who in 2023 had a solo exhibition at Louisiana Muesum».
In order to give Start Collecting with CHART more visibility, Quottrup Silbermann decided to merge it with CHART Architecture and place it in the courtyard, a public space easily accessible for free. «Combining the two initiatives we opened up the art world and encouraged people to start collecting art. It is our duty to make it more open as we want to bring more people in the art scene and make them aware of what is going on here».
Experimentation and community are the keywords of CHART
The contemporary art scene is an open field where experimentations and bold research take place: «I like to visit the degree show from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and every year there is a new focus: performance, painting, photography, video and so on. But I feel that right now we have space for everything, artists do not focus only on one thing, but they try out different media, or even merge them all together. I could see it in the proposals we received this year, it is a mix of everything. We encourage galleries to experiment and use the space creatively to create vibrant installations. This way we can get a wide photography of what is going on in the art world within the Nordics».
The second keyword of CHART’s vision and mission is community, a group of art professionals, collectors and simple enthusiasts who meet in Copenhagen every year to discover the latest innovations in contemporary art. It is common knowledge that after a fair, when gallerists take stock of the overall experience, they take two things into account: how many works they have sold to new or existing clients, and how many new contacts they have collected. These two pilots are more or less equal, as curators, museums and institutions are the ones who will help artists grow and develop their careers in the art world. «At CHART we do not talk about “my collectors” or “your collectors”, it’s “our collectors” – adds Quottrup Silbermann. I also feel that if you want to create an interesting art collection you do not go just to one gallery and purchase everything from that gallery, you must be curious and combine different things». , According to Quottrup Silbermann, among the qualities making a work of art memorable and significant is roughness, which brings out the beauty of imperfection, the authenticity of the artistic process and the power of artistic expression. Challenging traditional notions of beauty and craftmanship, it also invites viewers to appreciate the unique and the unrefined.
CHART: an untraditional art fair
CHART was born in 2013 as a platform to display what is happening in the Nordic countries’ art scene. Despite the participating galleries are based in the Nordics, the artists they represent come from all over the world. CHART aims to overturn the traditional notion of an art fair by combining different fields of creativity and lifestyle: art books, architecture, music, public performances and installations – CHART has recently announced a new three-year partnership with Tivoli Gardens where it will present a brand-new exhibition of sculptural installations -, local food partners, and a huge talk program featuring prominent names in the art scene.
An element of novelty introduced by CHART is the immersive exhibition layout: «Entering a traditional art fair you find these long aisles and three-walls-booths acting as stages which people pass by to look at the artworks. As CHART takes place inside an art institution, a classic one, we place the galleries inside the rooms and the existing architecture without creating booths or new constructions», Quottrup Silbermann explains. The CHART team not only selects the galleries but takes care of the entire layout of the exhibition, giving more space to those who need it and taking into consideration the style of the works they will present. The goal is to provide the public with the feeling of walking through a contemporary art exhibition, going from one gallery to another with a flowing pace.
CHART
Founded in 2013, CHART is a non-profit organisation encompassing both seasonal and year-round programming. CHART’s activities include: an art fair, an art book fair, a public program of talks and performances, an architectural competition, an off -site sculptural exhibition in the amusement park Tivoli Gardens and an online editorial platform. CHART is located at Charlottenborg, home of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, in the heart of Copenhagen. In 2024, CHART will take place 29 August – 01 September.
Agnese Torres
