Bergen: Kode Art … Lysverket

One venue at the Kode Art Museum down … onto another one.

I mentioned that we could see the museum buildings from the apartment. I was especially intrigued by one of them as it had a banner that read Kunsthåndverk … which I took to mean handicrafts … literal translation, Art Hand Work. Intrigued, I headed there when I left the Rasmus Meyer venue.

The steady rain that was falling earlier had dwindled down to a drizzle. But the wind had picked up a bit to add a chill factor that was missing earlier. No matter, it was just a short walk to Kode 4 … formally, Lysverket. Dating back to 1938, before it was converted into exhibition space, the building housed the former municipal power company, Bergen Lysverker.

The woman at the front desk scanned my ticket, I cloaked my rain jacket at the gardrobe, and went off to explore the current exhibition … with a detour to check out a small, single-room temporary exhibition.

Entitled “Krone & Kanne … Crowning the North,” it was dedicated to Bergen’s “…unique position in the history of Norwegian silver.” Apparently, Norway’s first goldsmiths’ guild was founded in Bergen. It held a monopoly on the production of both gold and silver works … serving as the goldsmithing hub for Norway for some 300 years.

Next, I continued on to the main exhibition, which ends on 16 August … “Crafted.” It took just a moment to realize that the collection wasn’t going to be the type of handcrafts I was expecting.

The goal of the exhibition is to give “… visitors the opportunity to explore the field of Norwegian craft through a rich selection of works … . More than 100 artists are represented, in a wide range of materials, formats and forms of expression. The exhibition explores contemporary crafts and challenges us to see things – and the world around us – in constantly new ways.”

The displayed works focus on the shift in the art scene during the past 25 years … a shift that allows artists to move freely between disciplines and materials in order to try their hand at something different. The works are displayed in what the museum describes as themes “… of materiality, craft traditions, everyday life, decoration, reuse and post-industrialism.

An interesting wander through crafted art!Read more