Vejen Art Museum
Showcases give new life to the ceramics collection at Vejen Art Museum
Vejen Art Museum is known for its large collection of Danish stoneware and artist ceramics from 1890 to the present day, and museum director Teresa Nielsen has over the years applied to the Danish Arts Foundation for ceramics for deposit both at the museum and the city hall – as a showcase for the museum.
The Danish Arts Foundation's Grant Committee for Crafts and Design had noticed the city's commitment to ceramics. The committee wanted the many large ceramic deposits that had been made in Vejen in recent years to benefit the citizens. Therefore, in 2019, the Danish Arts Foundation gave the city a display case for the newly built town hall. In it was to be presented ceramics deposited from the committee to Vejen Municipality.
The Danish Arts Foundation appointed exhibition architect and designer Mads Kjædegaard to design a tailor-made display case for Vejen Town Hall. Mads Kjædegaard's bid drew inspiration from the desevognen, which is the stand where the potters put the planks with the ceramics to dry before it is to be burned . The renowned architect and designer has made exhibition designs and fixtures for a large number of critically acclaimed exhibitions at the country's largest museums, including Louisiana, Statens Museum for Kunst, Arken and Trapholt.
When the production of the display case started, Vejen Art Museum was connected, as the museum's staff is responsible for the care of the deposited ceramic works. Teresa Nielsen says:
"It was important for the museum that we got a flexible display case that was easy to work with. The unique thing is that you can easily move around the shelves and set the light depending on the location of the shelves – they can even be pulled free of the back wall so that the light can fall down to back wall. It provides a lighter and airier bookcase , where you can make the shelves on which the ceramics stand float. The display case at Vejen Town Hall is also a showcase that points the viewer in the direction of Vejen Art Museum, if you want to see more ceramics.
Mads Kjædegaard, in close collaboration with Teresa Nielsen, developed a flexible display case that makes it easy to replace the works:
– I made the display case as a presenter tray, where Teresa be able to place the objects and create the atmosphere she wanted . With an exhibition, you know which artifacts should stand where. With the display case, I didn't know, because it's Teresa who chooses what to exhibit. My job was to design the house that things could live in.
The 2.2 m. high and 3 m wide display case of steel, wood and glass is made by AM Metal in Ribe and Special-Snedkeriet in Askov. Today, it can be experienced by all curious visitors and the city's citizens on the ground floor of Vejen Town Hall.
In the display case, contemporary ceramics are presented, while interested parties can move to the art museum to get the art historical connection back to the 1880s and especially the early Danish stoneware. At the town hall, works by the renowned salt glaze masters, ceramicists Hans and Birgitte Börjesen are shown, who are represented in the cityscape with a ceramic signage from The road station to the art museum laid like chaussé stone in the paving. In other words, there is coverage for the city name: The love of ceramics literally runs through Vejen (The Road) and binds the city together.
The display case as a stage designer of the art
Since 2019, Vejen Art Museum has been engaged in a large new building made possible by a donation from the A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal. In this connection, the museum was to have new showcases for the Ceramics Collection. Teresa Nielsen had become so excited to work with the display case at the town hall that she asked Mads Kjædegaard to adapt the concept for use at the art museum:
"Mads continued to work on the desevogn tank. The shelves are floating and it is easy to replace the works. There is no use tools when putting in new shelves. In this way, you can continuously move around when new works are added or something needs to be lent. It should be a living exhibition.
While the display case at Vejen Town Hall is 70 cm. deep, the Ceramics Collection display case is just 40 cm. deep, so they fit the exhibition space. It is located on the ceiling of the former School of Visual Arts, where the room is lined with 20-meter showcases around the walls. Once again, the production is made in collaboration with AM Metal - and this time together with Ohrt Interior from Vejen.
Mads Kjædegaard's next task was to design four display cases for ceramics by Niels Hansen Jacobsen (1861-1941). The sculptor is Vejen Art Museum's protagonist. The museum was founded in 1924 as a separate museum for him, and the collection of his experimental ceramics is one of the museum's mainstays.
The four showcases are more monumental. They play together with the NHJ hall, which is part of the old museum with red walls, fine panels, skylights and paintings in gold frame. The hall was built as a studio for Niels Hansen Jacobsen, and it called for a different idiom:
"There is a different atmosphere in the NHJ hall than in the exhibition room in the attic, where the showcases are more raw with wood details. Here we refined the showcases a little to suit the special atmosphere in the hall. The idea was to make them modern without making them foreign, says Mads Kjædegaard.
Most recently, Mads Kjædegaard has put the finishing touches on a number of showcases that are currently under production and which will present statuettes in bronze, plaster and other materials in the semi-high basement of the new building called the M-house.
All showcases are made so that the exhibitions can change and develop, but only the showcases in the special exhibition area in the basement can be disassembled and taken down if needed. The others are a regular part of the décor.
Display case lighting makes stoneware glaze play
During the process of drawing the showcases, Mads Kjædegaard knew exactly what light he wanted in the showcases. In his search for the perfect lamp, he came across the small discreet spot from Ljusdesign.
"I was looking for a spot that was as discreet as possible. I work on the basis that it is the artifacts that are at stake, my design should not point to me, but in this case present the ceramics. The lamp from Ljusdesign lived up to this, says Mads Kjædegaard and adds:
"The spot lamps are flexible and can easily be moved, twisted and turned, and they can be individually turned up and down in strength so that any lux requirements can be met. It is easy to change lenses on them, so the spread of light changes, and this provides good opportunities to make fine lighting. Yes, and it was not unimportant that they could compete on price.
Mads Kjædegaard contacted Jens Lind, director of Gobo, which is a distributor of the Swedish brand in Denmark and the northern part of Europe.
Gobo, which supplies lighting equipment to museums and other exhibition venues, has been selling Ljusdesign for 10 years, and according to Jens Lind, the Swedish brand has perfected the lamp for exhibition purposes over the years:
"For more than 30 years, Ljusdesign has supplied high-quality display case lighting to museums around the world. They have taken the qualities of theatre spots and made miniature versions that make them optimal for strengthening storytelling at exhibitions.
A crucial advantage of the lamps is that they are so small that they are inserted inside the display case – on the back of the front frame.
"Often things die in a display case. You can try to put the light under the shelf, at the top or in front of the display case. But it's annoying when you stand in front of an exhibition object and shadow it yourself. These small lamps are mounted inside the objects, which ensures that you do not stand in the light. It also causes no glare nuisance, says Teresa Nielsen.
And thus the ceramics are brought to life:
"The stoneware glaze requires a bright light, you have to be able to see that there is a game in it – and you don't get that by putting a lamp at the top of a display case with a general light," says Teresa Nielsen.
When the museum director calls the lamp from Ljusdesign a revelation, it is also because it is easy to work with:
" It is intuitive to work with the lamps. They require neither tools nor expertise. The lamps sit on a rail and can easily be clicked off and moved around.
In addition, it has been important to Teresa Nielsen that the lamp is produced close to Denmark:
"The sustainable element was important to us. The fact that the lamp is produced in Sweden means that it can be repaired. It's not just another thing from Langbortistan that you have to throw away.
Mads Kjædegaard has collaborated with Jens Lind from Gobo on the display case lighting. And he was pleased with the sparring he received from Jens Lind, who has many years of experience with lighting and storytelling at museums:
"Jens Lind is a good partner, he understands the task and he knows what he is talking about. For example, he knew how many lamps I needed, as he has control over dimensioning in relation to power and transformers. And then I got a really good service at Gobo. They lent me several products and explained the possibilities to me, and they have given me good prices.
The light as a storyteller
Showcase lighting is about supporting a story, and as an exhibition architect and designer, Mads Kjædegaard is used to working with light as a storyteller.
"The light is incredibly important for how we perceive things – both the light in the exhibition and inside the showcases. The light controls the mood. For example, you can make it dramatic and point out that here there is something extraordinary - right where the light gathers.
It's about using the right lighting in the right way:
"You can define things. If you have shiny objects and just knock light on them, then you blur the shape of the object, but if you put the light right, you perceive the rounding, textures and colors.
The light can help the museum visitor navigate the ceramic exhibitions:
"You can also use the light to form groups within a larger collection. You focus some light on, for example, five objects and make it a little darker before you reach the next object, so that it is not a uniform surface and similarly lit objects.
And here the little spot from Ljusdesign benefited:
" It is crucial that the light is not tiring. If you just put a large lamp on in the display case, the eye gets tired, but with the lamp from Ljusdesign you have the opportunity to differentiate the light so that the eye can wander.
There is something to look forward to when the newly renovated museum opens its doors in the spring and fills the entire house with works from its own collection. You can enjoy the museum's unique ceramics collection beautifully staged in the new showcases from basement to ceiling and delve into the unique collection of works of art - primarily from the time around the year 1900, the Danish symbolism.
The opening exhibition at Vejen Art Museum runs until January 2023, when it will be replaced by a special exhibition with works by the painter Ejnar Nielsen.
Fact box
The showcases
All showcases are designed by exhibition architect and designer Mads Kjædegaard and produced by AM Metal, Special-Snedkeriet and Ohrt Interior.
Mads Kjædegaard is a trained architect and designer from CPH Design and the Royal Academy. His portfolio includes a wide range of exhibition designs and furniture for exhibitions at the country's largest art museums, especially at Louisiana, where Mads Kjædegaard has been an exhibition architect on an ongoing basis. since 2007. This has resulted in a string of fine reviews, which highlight Mads Kjædegaard for his strong stagings.
Vejen Art Museum
Vejen Art Museum houses a unique collection of Danish symbolism and art nouveau from the time around the year 1900.
The museum was founded in 1924 as the setting for the sculptor and ceramic artist Niels Hansen Jacobsen's life's work. Over the past 20 years, the collection has multiplied around Niels Hansen Jacobsen, his contemporaries and with a special focus on the female artists, ceramics and the Grundtvigian artists .
The ceramics collection at Vejen Art Museum is based on the many vases, pots, busts and small sculptures that Niels Hansen Jacobsen donated to his hometown. The number of his works has steadily increased over the years thanks to donations and ongoing purchases. At the museum you can study all sides of his wild experiments, which even today seem modern. Gradually, the museum has built up a collection that puts into perspective his place as co-founder of Danish stoneware history – the highly burnt ceramics that he came to know in Paris. There is therefore now also a fine collection of French ceramics from the time around 1900.
Gobo and Ljusdesign
Gobo is a distributor of Ljusdesign in large parts of Europe. Ljusdesign is designed and developed in Sweden and is one of the few brands that produces the lamps themselves. This makes the products more sustainable, because Gobo can send them to Sweden if they need to be repaired, and it provides great flexibility as the lamps can be quickly modified because they are produced close by.
Ljusdesign has a strict focus on quality and only delivers lamps with pure, white light with high color reproduction. They use the best LED Chips and optimize the lenses so that they get the optimal yield with a high Ra value and a powerful output, which can be regulated with the built-in dampens.