The Best of Scandinavian Art on Show at Chart
The fair brings together the best of galleries with a strong curatorial display. Much emphasis on collaborations and emerging collectors
4' min read
Key points
4' min read
Copenhagen from 29 August to 1 September hosted the 12th edition of Chart (Copenhagen Art Fair), the fair bringing together the best of Scandinavian art, 36 galleries from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland this year.
Chart is developed inside the Charlottenborg Palace, a public institution housing the Academy of Fine Arts. No barriers between public and private and no plasterboard walls to separate the galleries. The fair takes place in the museum's 18th century spaces with each room hosting two or more exhibitors.
The tour of the fair begins at the Wilson Saplana gallery, where the photographs ofInuuteq Storch, the artist representing Denmark at the Venice Biennial, the first time for an artist from Greenland, stand out. And Greenland is the protagonist of his photographs, for the artist it is essential to represent his community, so little known abroad and at the same time so exposed to the cultural colonisation of Europe and the United States. These contradictions coexist on a breakfast table: slices of whale and lemon ice cream. Photographs of nature threatened by man, but also ironic photographs that lighten the whole. The works, in editions, range from 5,000 to 7,000 euros, many sales and much interest from museums.
The large presence of public institutions and private foundations among the buyers, shapes the fair somewhat by encouraging exhibitors to go beyond painting and offer sculptures and installations, even large ones. A square, metaphysical figure by Erwin Wurm stands out on a pedestal and is offered by Bo Bjerggaard Gallery at 100.000 euros, curiously the same figure as a golden, pop and almost kitsch sculpture depicting a spider with a Mickey Mouse face, the work is by Esben Weile Kjaer, an emerging star of the Nordic landscape: at only 32 years of age, he is one of the most sought-after artists with his prices soaring and offered by Andersen's Contemporary.
There is also a little bit of Italy in Chart, the Stockholm-based gallery Nevven, owned by an Italian who opened a pop-up location in Bologna in January. At the fair he proposed a duo show between sculptor Sigve Knutson and photographer Minh Ngoc Nguyen, a couple in life as well. Their absolutely affordable prices range from EUR 3,000 to EUR 4,300. From Sweden also the Andrèhn-Schiptjenko Gallery, one of the local market leaders, much interest in three sculptures by Tony Matelli, depicting inverted flower pots, very eye-catching, prices range from 80,000 to 90,000 euros.
