Exhibition Description

 

New Positions
Group Exhibition
Rosa Tolnov Clausen, Maria Bang Espersen, Christian Hammer Juhl 
and Jade Chan, Malene Hartmann Rasmussen, and Alberte Tranberg
March 7 – May 30, 2020

View images of this exhibition

Simone DeSousa EDITION is pleased to present New Positions a special exhibition highlighting six Danish contemporary artists and designers that are part of a residency in Detroit. The residency, spanning October 2019 through March 2020, has been supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, and coordinated by U.S. based Danish ceramist Anders Ruhwald. Resident artists and designers were connected to two local schools, Cranbrook Academy of Art and College for Creative Studies, allowing them to take part in the professional artistic environment, interact and exchange ideas, while being able to expand their network and immerse themselves in the current Detroit art scene.

New Positions opens to the public on Saturday, March 7, and will be on view through April: Rosa Tolnov Clausen, fiber art; Maria Bang Espersen, glass; Christian Hammer Juhl and Jade Chan, design; Malene Hartmann Rasmussen, ceramic; and Alberte Tranberg, metals.

Rosa Tolnov Clausen
Rosa Tolnov Clausen holds a Master of Arts in Textile Design from Kolding School of Design, Denmark, 2013. Since her graduation she has created textile projects based in hand weaving with strong social components, including the codesign project H.O.W. in collaboration with the weavers at Blindes Arbejde (Work by the Blind) in Denmark, and participatory installations at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Seoul; and Fuori Salone, Milan. In 2018 Rosa started her PhD research at University of Gothenburg in Sweden, with a focus on by whom and for what purpose hand weaving can matter as it can be performed in the Nordic region today.

Maria Bang Espersen
Maria Bang Espersen (born in Denmark) is a visual artist working primarily in sculpture and video. Her work focuses on the fictional stories that are told through everyday objects and aims to heighten an awareness around their damaging effects.

Espersen holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and a BA from the Royal Danish Academy on Bornholm, DK. Her work has been shown throughout Europe and in the U.S.  She has presented solo and duo exhibitions at Gallery SiC in Poland, Fortælle Galleriet, Gallery Rasch and Officinet in Denmark as well as S12 in Norway. Her work has been part of group exhibitions at The Corning Museum of Glass, The V&A in London, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, among others. Residencies she has attended include the Corning Museum of Glass, NY, Wheaton Arts, NJ, Playa Fellowship Program, OR, as well as S12 in Norway and the Core Program in Houston, TX. Her artistic achievements have won her multiple international awards: The Jury’s Special Award at the Coburg Prize 2014, the Talent Award of the Jutta Cuny Franz Foundation 2015, the Danish KP-Prize 2015 and more. Her sculptures are part of collections in England, Germany, Belgium, Norway, France, Sweden and the U.S.

Christian Hammer Juhl and Jade Chan
Christian Hammer Juhl (DK) and Jade Chan (SG) are a design duo educated at the Design Academy Eindhoven, Netherlands and currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Christian + Jade celebrates the influence that our products can have on our lifestyle by designing everyday objects to encourage sensible and valuable interactions. Working out of the intention to rethink our living environment, the duo manifest works that spans between a variety of material and techniques, which comes together in a strong visual language and intent. The duo’s process relies on researching and understanding societal movements and changes. With a part academic and part hands on investigative approach, they focus on delivering an aesthetic and strong story.

Malene Hartmann Rasmussen
Malene Hartmann Rasmussen is a Danish artist working within the field of narrative figurative sculpture and installation. Educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, School of Design, Bornholm and Royal College of Art in London, she now lives and works in London. A recurring theme in her work is the forest and the mythological creatures that lurk in the dark woods. Her

mixed‑media ceramic installations use motifs from the domestic and natural world. She weaves together notions of memories, daydreams and childhood nostalgia into a fairy‑tale of her own making. Hartmann Rasmussen’s interest in the forest stems from its recurrence in European literature and myth, ancient cults, pagan rituals, and as a metaphor for the hidden realms of the

unconscious mind. Comprising a number of elaborate fragments, she creates a tableaux of visual excess through which she seeks to evoke an emotional response in the viewer and actuate their imagination.

Her work draws on the idea of animism; that animals and plants have a soul and that rivers, mountains and rocks, if not actually alive, are in some way sentient. She is interested in the human subconscious and strives to create a hyper‑real world that addresses this gap between perception and reality. Her ornate ceramics may initially appear excessively sweet, but upon closer inspection reveal themselves as impossible and absurd objects, imbued with the artist’s own dark narrative.

Alberte Tranberg
Alberte Tranberg is a sculptor and metal worker from Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2018, Tranberg graduated from Cranbrook Academy of Art with an MFA in Metalsmithing. At Cranbrook she developed her practice by immersing herself in minimalist sculpture as an intervention to notions of domesticity and gendered architecture. Having previously worked at a water treatment plant, producing, developing and maintaining plant parts and machinery-Tranberg is a certified metal worker.  Prior to her time at Cranbrook, Tranberg was a metal worker in an all-women’s blacksmith shop; customizing furniture and interior elements mainly in steel.

Tranberg is a recipient of a Fulbright sponsorship which has supported her work in the United States. Tranberg currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.