The Power of Print Exhibition in Copenhagen - Part 1

Hi and welcome 😊. I have a special treat for you! This fall, when I visited my brother and his family in Copenhagen, my lovely SIL took me to the Design Museum Danmark to see the Power of Print exhibition - Danish Textile Prints Through 100 Years. Here is a very quick overview.

If you're looking for the Free Motion Mavericks post, it's here.

Power of Print 

It was a large exhibition in two sections. The first featured works by eight contemporary fabric printing designers/artists in Denmark. These artists hand-printed textiles specifically for the exhibition. This is what I'll share with you in this post. The second part of the exhibit showcased textiles from the museum's archives. It was arranged to examine all aspects of textile printing, from various printing techniques, to colour, stripes and the design of repeats. This will make a good second post.

Here are some of my favourite pieces by contemporary Danish textile artists. What I loved most about these were the colours; sometimes rich and bright, others more whimsical and light, and often with colours that you wouldn't think played well together! I also love how many of the designers use space within their prints.

Bitten Hegelund and Lisbeth Friis offer vibrant and interesting colours and unexpected lines

Bitten Hegelund’s broken lines

Lisbeth Friis’ stripes, dots, and checks

The next two fabrics are floral motifs by Josefina Enevold, who worked with and was influenced by Swedish designers. 

Josefina Enevold's botanic motifs

One of my favourite - flower motif by Josefina Enevold

Next is the duo Tronhjem Rømer, which consists of artists Liv Marie Rømer and Trine Tronhjem, Their rich, flowing fabric requires a second look to see its complexity of both line and colour.

Flowing fabric by Tronhjem Rømer

A close up of the lines and colours at play

Janne Wendt's work was fascinating. In the display case below, we see how Janne used the hair of an ancient Greek and Roman statues as inspiration.     

Inspired by the hair of an ancient statue

Printing by Janne Wendt, inspired by sculptured hair

Another interesting artist is Anne Fabricius Møller. She loves to use everyday objects as printing tools. Once you see her work, you know that it's not the actual object but the way that it plays with all of the elements of the design that make them special!

One of Anne Fabricius Møller's
prints

Details of Anne Fabricius Møller's print

Two prints by 
Anne Fabricius Møller

Details of another print by Anne Fabricius Møller

Else Borup Kallesøe's work is geometric. It goes from light, such as the Flying Palette on silk organza below, to intricate stripes.

Else Borup Kallesøe's Flying Palette

Details of Flying Palette

The geometric work of Else Borup Kallesøe

What I learned

• The Power of Print is a large exhibition and I'm sure that I could have discovered new things if I had a chance to go again. 
• The printed textiles were amazing, a real treat for the eyes! 
• As I mentioned, one of the things that I noticed in many of the textiles was the interesting use of colour. Many of the colours I wouldn't expect to play nice but I think that value probably plays a large part in that.
• As I toured the exhibition, I knew that I wanted to write a post on this. So I ended up taking a lot more photos of the explanations, rather than reading it all there. 
• In this instance, this worked well for me. I easily get overwhelmed by everything. This way, I examined and took pictures of what I liked but then when I wrote the post, I read all of the information and looked at the textiles.
• I was also lucky that there are a few good articles about the exhibition so I was able to match the images to the artist. In most instances the textiles were placed together, but that's not necessarily how I took my pictures. 😵‍💫 
• I was also surprised that many of the artists' don't have websites.
• I had a really hard time finding the Design Museum. I tried the day before my visit, but managed to go the opposite way. When I figured this out, I was so tired that I took a lovely boat tour on the canals of Copenhagen. It was all good 👍, actually great!!

Related links

• Design Museum Danmark, The Power of Print
• A cabinet of textile wonders - a wonderful article in Form Kraft magazine

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. You may want I check some out.