Sailboats and Architecture Converged at This Copenhagen Art Fair

Innovative design played a part at the Chart Art Fair

Copenhagen buildings
The Chart Art Fair returned to Copenhagen.
Freya Ingrid Morales/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In 2013, a quintet of Copenhagen galleries began organizing the Chart Art Fair, and it’s been an annual event in the city since then. In an article about the show, Vogue Scandinavia highlighted a few aspects of interest, including a book and print fair and a dedicated section of the festival intended for first-time collectors looking to get their feet wet. As befits an event spanning multiple creative disciplines, visitors could also take in some innovative designs while there — including a particularly enticing way of repuroposing ship sails.

Writing at Dezeen, Amy Frearson has more information on how sails were repurposed for this year’s event. As Frearson reports, a quartet of architects — Emil Dupuis Bernild, Mikkel Harboe Wolff, Jonas Sarantaris and Shwan Soran Ali — collaborated on the winning design for an outdoor pavilion. Its name? Breeze.

The art fair’s Instagram presence hailed the design’s use of “sails from Danish ships, allowing daylight to illuminate the artworks inside, whilst also protecting them against the elements.” It has an evocative look to it — something that looks both modern and organic, and lends the space an almost ceremonial touch.

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The outdoor pavilion was home to the “Start Collecting With CHART” exhibit, consisting of artwork priced below €2,700 (or $2,985 at the current rate of exchange). Among the considerations the designers had in mind were portability and a “new Nordic” aesthetic, Dezeen reports. And for attendees of this year’s fair, those principles were on full display.

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