Clogs’ album
We’re back! Well almost… As of Monday we will resume work behind our desks at the studio, after a lovely month of sunshine and holidays. In the mean time we have designed a bit of stage decoration for the Trailerpark Festival, which is beginning tonight! Don’t miss it – there will be lots and lots of fantastic bands playing and beautiful artwork and sculptures to see. Hope to meet you there!
Our stage design is a forest of abstract shapes made of wood, painted white on the top and different colours on the back. With the white side up, it’ll be possible to project visuals on the shapes, while hopefully the colours on the back will create interesting effects when lit from beneath.
Bo Benzon from Arkitekturministeriet is the technical mastermind behind the wood construction, and thanks to happy helpers at the festival it was possible to paint all 67 shapes in 2 days…
Looking forward to see how it looks when all the shapes are up! Photos by Rasmus Stolberg
0 Comments Arkitekturministeriet, Bo Benzon, Stage design, Trailerpark Festival
The Danish National Chamber Orchestra
Posted by HvassHannibal on May 18th 2010 in Projects, Work in progress
We are currently busy working with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra, creating some accessories that they can wear at their shows and concerts, and also some decorative elements for the stage. We have worked with the orchestra before, when they performed with Efterklang in 2008. Back then we designed costumes for the band, and did stage design as well.
We initially started experimenting with rope in all sizes and colours, tying hundreds of knots and monkey fists, but we have now settled for a more discrete and subtle look with elements of spraypainted wood and plexiglas. We have to be done before we leave for China on Friday, which leaves little time for packing suitcases, let alone preparing a workshop for 80 students. So we are kind of busy here… but in a good way!
For now here’s a photo of our desktop at the studio.
On another note, if there’s anything you would be interested in seeing more of on our blog, please leave a comment or send us a mail. Blogging is relatively new to us, so any feedback would be great.
Art Stars is a project initiated by Ralph Lauren, where 50 up and coming contemporary artists from around the world have been commissioned to create artwork on big stars made out of wooden frames and denim. We decorated a star measuring 150 x 150 cm which almost didn’t even fit through the tiny door to our studio (where less than tall men usually bump their heads the first time they come for a visit).
Here are some pictures of the process as well as a picture from the fashion store Storm in Copenhagen, where the star was exhibited. Later all the stars will get together in London for a big show and then they will be auctioned off for charity.
Yesterday we went out to The Lab, a huge photo studio in Copenhagen, with Efterklang and photographer Rasmus Weng Carlsen, to shoot the next cover photo for a Danish music magazine. Here are some of our snapshots from the day.
We brought all the ribbons from the Magic Chairs album cover that we designed, and Efterklang brought a lot of bright, colorful clothes. Rasmus tried some different shots, but we don’t know which of them will make it to the cover… We’re hoping for ribbons!
Yesterday was also the release day of Efterklang’s new album Magic Chairs, so we celebrated with champagne!
Visit Rasmus Weng Karlsens site here.
1 Comment Efterklang, Magic Chairs, Rasmus Weng Carlsen, The Lab
Behind the scenes of Magic Chairs cover
Posted by HvassHannibal on January 29th 2010 in Projects, Work in progress
It seems that there has been some talk about how we actually made the cover for Efterklang’s album, Magic Chairs. For instance, our intern Mikkel from Bergen Kunsthøgskole told us that his class had discussed it and had reached the conclusion that it must be computer generated 3D graphics! This is not quite the case… Without revealing too much, here are some behind-the-scenes photos from our preparations and from the actual photo shoot.
We produced the ribbons ourselves, dying textiles and sewing everything by hand. Gry Rasmussen, who was our intern at the time and has a BA in textile design from Kolding Design School, helped us figure out how to dye the fabric in all imaginable colours. Before the actual shoot, all the ribbons were taken out on a test drive in our courtyard and in the Botanical Garden of Copenhagen.
It was a difficult task finding the right place to shoot the cover photo. We had been all over Copenhagen, and finally we found the perfect place: in the courtyard of Thorvaldsen’s Museum. The museum houses nearly all of the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen’s original models of sculptures he created for numerous European countries. We fell for the architectural lines, the mixture of neoclassicism and orientally inspired details. Together with the ribbons we thought it made a really striking combination of colours and monumental lines. Thorvaldsen was actually buried in the middle of the courtyard, beneath the plant in the middle.
On the day of the shoot there was a fair amount of panic, because it was raining and the courtyard was completely wet, which was something we hadn’t intended at all. Efterklang made a desperate attempt at scraping and drying water off the floor while rain kept falling. (Imagine trying to wipe a 300 square meter bathroom floor dry while the shower is on, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how hopeless this was). All the ribbons got soaked and were way too heavy, so the 20 invisible gymnasts that we had assembled from all over town had a hard time making them fly. But as it turned out, the wet floor is a huge asset for the final image, giving it a glassy and surrealist feel. So for those of you who might have thought it to be marble, we can reveal that it’s only wet tar…
The final album cover is the result of 1 month of intense work! The photo is taken by our long time collaborator Brian Buchard. We’ll give you a little introduction to him soon…
1 Comment Album cover, Brian Buchard, Efterklang, Magic Chairs, Ribbons, Thorvaldsens Museum
Losing the plot
Posted by HvassHannibal on January 22nd 2010 in Exhibitions, Projects, Travel, Work in progress
If you haven’t seen them already, remember to check out the photos from our show in London. The show is up until February 27th 2010, so if you are in London, or somewhere near, do drop by and have a look – a lot of the work is made of painted wood and is much better experienced live than on photos! We’ll post a few of the pictires here, but there are more photos + info under the ‘work’ section of our website. And also, here are some photos of how it all came about in a dark and damp basement under Sofie’s apartment.
Kemistry Gallery, 43 Charlotte Road, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3PD
If you could collaborate
Posted by HvassHannibal on January 22nd 2010 in Exhibitions, Projects, Travel, Work in progress
If You Could Collaborate is the fourth annual If You Could exhibition curated by Will and Alex from It’s Nice That. We met them a year ago in London over a cup of tea and agreed to join the project. The contributors have been challenged to produce something a little unexpected, by working with a partner of their choosing from any discipline, profession or background. There is no brief to answer, or format to honour – the only limit being the enterprise and imagination of the artists involved, and a liberal 12 month deadline.
We collaborated with our friend Anne Werner, producing a (hold tight) “Op-Art inspired medievalish tapestry made from cotton fabric”. We wanted to create something entirely graphical, and looked at various Op-Art pieces for inspiration. Instead of paper or canvas we decided to use fabric. And instead of traditionally drawing or painting the pattern, we used fabric manipulation techniques to give it an edge of something funny and a bit exaggerated. We really liked working with this combination of modern and non-modern references. These techniques have been used for hundreds of years and in combination with complementary colors and Op-Art like patterns it gave an interesting new expression.
The show is open from 15 — 23 January 2010, 12–6pm
(open late on 21 January, 12–9pm)
A Foundation Gallery at Rochelle School, London E2 7ES.
Read more about all the other fantastic collaborations here:
www.ifyoucould.co.uk/collaborate
Gry Futtrup Rasmussen and Linn Wie helped us getting everything together, sewing and cutting all the fabric. Here are some photos of the process:
1 Comment Collaboration, Exhibitions, If You Could Collaborate, It's nice that, Textiles