Hilde De Decker: For the farmer and the market gardener, 2004, Silver, tomato, container, vinegar

In June 2010, Gallery Format in Bergen will host an exhibition with the theme of ‘speed’. The show’s organizers are thinkers, writers, theorists, curators and makers within the field of craft and design. They call themselves Think Tank, A European Initiative for the Applied Arts.
This is the fifth exhibition Think Tank has arranged, and so far it has been shown in Munich and in Gmunden, Austria, in connection with the sixth Think Tank symposium (2009). The exhibition is called SPEED, a rather surprising name for anything having to do with crafts.

‘I don’t think anyone can say how the subject of ‘speed’ came up. The concept was just put on the table and we all agreed on it.’

Jorunn Veiteberg, professor of curatorial studies and craft theory at Bergen National Academy of the Arts, is one of Think Tank’s ten members and is responsible for the exhibition in Norway.

‘It’s a surprising concept to use in connection with crafts, and I think this is why it intrigued several of us. While speed is something you associate with modernity and mechanical production, crafts are often perceived as having to do with values pertaining to the Slow Movement.’

She explains that Think Tank members have a common aversion to dogmas and ‘isms’ in general, and also to notions about slow food, slow cities and the like; they wanted to put across the idea that crafts might be just as interesting from the perspective of speed.

Kjell Rylander: Street ware, 2009, paper, glue, porcelain, 11 × 9 × 7 cm.

A forum for theory
‘Think Tank has existed since 2004,’ explains Veiteberg. The initiative came from Gabi Dewald, editor-in-chief of the bilingual (German/English) KeramikMagazin/CeramicsMagazine.

‘Dewald felt the need for a forum where theorists involved in the crafts could meet and discuss the field, and she approached me about it. Her vision was to set up a small European association, the goal being to ‘support, strengthen and challenge current thinking within the field of crafts.’

The association is idealistic. Members pay their own travel expenses and additional costs and earn no royalties. Every year they meet in Gmunden, Austria, a town with a 300 year history of ceramics production. Think Tank recruits its own members so it’s rather a select sodality. Membership has however jumped from six (at the time of the first symposium) to ten, with nine countries represented.

Veiteberg explains that the idea is simple:

‘We decided on a plan at the first meeting and have stuck to it ever since: Together we decide on a key concept that will be the subject of the year’s symposium. Each of us prepares a paper and brings two objects in our luggage. In addition, we bring a text explaining the works we have chosen.’

The yearly exhibition was initially intended as Think Tank’s gift to the town of Gmunden for its generosity.

Kari Skoe Fredriksen: UFO, 2006, cast porcelain, hand-modelled and dropped on the floor when freshly cast, before drying and firing, 5 × 25 × 17 cm

Trash and ready-mades
Former Think Tank exhibitions have focused on the themes of language, places, gifts and skill, and SPEED functions on the same principle, so it’s only the objects that are new.

‘I think people who have seen the other exhibitions we’ve made will interpret this one as a typical Think Tank-exhibition,’ Veiteberg surmises.

‘It’s put together by the same people, and the objects are affected by the fact that “Think Tank is so liberal it could effectively be named the The Things and Stuff Society, as the American gallery owner Garth Clark put it.’

This year Veiteberg chose to take works by Kjell Rylander and Kari Skoe Fredriksen to Gmunden. Rylander’s work consists of a crumpled paper cup with a crackled porcelain base. Fredriksen’s work is made solely with one material; she started with a freshly cast piece of porcelain which she then hand-moulded with the aid of gravity – by throwing it on the floor in a controlled way. It was then dried, glazed and fired.

‘My choice of artists and works is related to the kind of art I work with on a daily basis as leader of the research program Creating Artistic Value: A Project on Trash and Ready-mades, Arts and Ceramics at Bergen National Academy of the Arts,’ Veiteberg explains.

In connection with the opening of SPEED in Bergen, a conference entitled ‘Slow or fast? A seminar on crafts identity and social function’, will be held at Permanenten, West Norway Museum of Decorative Art. Permanenten is one of Norway’s three national museums for craft and design. The conference is organized through collaboration between Veiteberg’s research program and the Format Gallery in Bergen.

‘The goal is to shed light on crafts, both in theory and in practice’, says Veiteberg.

Several members from Think Tank will contribute to the conference, including Veiteberg herself. In addition, the American theorist Ezra Shales will be there to talk about ‘The Social Life of Craft’, and the jewellery artist Felike van der Leest will introduce her exhibition at Permanenten.

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