How Copenhagen’s Chart Art Fair celebrated its first decade

Chart Art Fair has a definite proposition. Founded in 2013 by five leading Copenhagen galleries, the annual three-day event in August is a window into the Nordic contemporary art and design scene. And it’s become one of the highlights on the arts calendar. The recent Chart Art Fair 2023 didn't disappoint.

This year’s fair was possibly one of the most lively to date, with 37 regional galleries exhibiting at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, where the courtyard of this historic building staged an architectural competition involving five young practices to coincide with Copenhagen’s selection as Unesco’s World Capital of Architecture for 2023. 

For the second year running, Chart also presented a sculptural show in the city’s charming Tivoli Gardens and amusement park, featuring 16 site-specific works by a select group of international artists (running until 24 September 2023). There was also an exhibition for newcomers to collecting art, and a lively public programme of talks, performances, films and music.

‘Chart is built on the aspiration to create a strong arts community throughout the Nordic region and to offer a single-entry point to this community for international audiences,’ says the fair’s new director, Julie Quottrup Silbermann. ‘We want to promote an idea of the Nordic art scene as a space with a strong emphasis on high-quality curated presentations and a collegial rather than competitive atmosphere – with galleries sharing resources, information and collectors with one another.’

At the main event in Charlottenborg, the 37 established and younger galleries, all from the Nordic region, exhibited a wide range of works from local to international artists. Copenhagen’s Galleri Bo Bjerggaard’s show, for instance, curated to the theme of ‘kiss’ for an all-female group show of artists Anna Bjerger, A K Dolven, Emily Gernild, Eva Schlegel and Janaina Tschäpe. 

Other highlights include Reykjavik-based i8 Gallery with its solo show of contemporary Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, exploring his relationship with seriality and historical and cultural references.

Open to the public at Charlottenborg’s foyer, ‘Start Collecting with Chart’ exhibited work by participating galleries priced below DKK20,000 (€2,700). ‘We hope to encourage first-time buyers to start their collecting journey with stand-out works at a more affordable price point,’ explains Quottrup Silbermann. ‘At Chart 2023 we expanded the conversation around the idea of conscious collecting and through new initiatives, built more transparency around the purchasing process.’

For the ninth edition of Chart Architecture, a competition was set in the spring, inviting new graduates and emerging architectural firms to design an installation for the Charlottenborg courtyard that responded to space and to the theme ‘New European Bauhaus’ and with an emphasis on sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion. From the record-breaking 60 applicants, five were shortlisted and exhibited, with work that mostly employed found materials and reused waste.

The first prize was awarded to Plan Noll for its proposal, Off-The-Shelf, an archway built inside Charlottenborg’s courtyard to welcome visitors to Chart as well as function as a meeting point and a refuge inside the busy space. The structure is made from found materials, corrugated fiberglass sheets and galvanised steel scaffolding standards so that the unprocessed and readily available material can be reused in future projects. Meanwhile, Off-The-Shelf ‘directly references the architecture and design details at Charlottenborg to create a contextual but foreign object’, say the team, to encourage viewers to actively observe and engage.

A highlight for its fun and whimsical approach is Chart in Tivoli, now in its second term and running until 24 September. This year, 16 international artists made site-specific works nestled among Copenhagen’s 180-year-old Tivoli Gardens, the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world. The selection includes a whole range of media, from traditional sculpture to site-specific installations and neon works, by both established artists such as Sylvie Fleury, Jonathan Meese and FOS and emerging artists Audur Lóa, Georg Nordmark and Oliver Sundqvist.

‘Chart in Tivoli continues our mission of being an agent of positive change, challenging the traditional art fair format and bringing contemporary art to new audiences,’ says Quottrup Silbermann. ‘I was thrilled to see how all artists have carefully selected or created their work, making the experience a journey through the garden's magical spaces,’ she says, adding that it feels like a treasure hunt roaming Tivoli Gardens.

Chart Art Fair 2023 made it its mission to be inclusive through the Tivoli initiative and the performance programme in the public square at Kongens Nytorv. ‘We want to broaden the audience for art and art experiences and to help reduce the framing of contemporary art as something elitist,’ says Quottrup Silbermann. ‘Chart at Tivoli is a good example of one of our strategies to encourage meetings between art and new audiences in unexpected settings. Our performance programme has been another way of bringing art out into the public sphere. There are a lot of opportunities to broaden the conversation around contemporary art and what art can do.’

Chart Art Fair 2023 took place from 25 to 27 August at Kunsthalle Charlottenborg and Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, ChartArtFair.com