Meeting a dinosaur calls for respect! Initiating a conversation calls for courage!
In the exhibition A Walk with a Dinosaur – Michael Geertsen vs. Royal Copenhagen, one of Denmark’s most esteemed ceramic artists, Michael Geertsen, takes on the challenge and enters into dialogue with Denmark’s storied flagship of decorative ceramic arts: Royal Copenhagen. The occasion is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Danish Porcelain Factory, which was established in 1775 on Købmagergade in central Copenhagen by the pharmacist Frantz Heinrich Müller (1732–1820) under the patronage of Queen Dowager Juliane Marie (1729–1796).
As home to the historical Royal Copenhagen Collection, which was donated to CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark in 2010, it is only natural for the museum to want to mark this impressive historical milestone. To do so, we invited Michael Geertsen to create an intervention exhibition that stages a dialogue between his own works of ceramic art and selected historical pieces from the factory. Under the title A Walk with a Dinosaur, his – bold, masterful and humorous – exhibition provides a new perspective on 250 years of Danish porcelain manufacturing.
For many years, Michael Geertsen has taken a constructive but also critical stance in relation to the historical legacy that he builds on. A ceramic history that he finds both fascinating and repulsive but which in any case serves as an important point of departure for his own artistic practice as he explores the potential of the techniques when applied to earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. In Geertsen’s transhistorical approach, nothing is ugly, wrong or insignificant. Instead, he sees the historical pieces as interesting statements from the past. As pieces that represent the pinnacle of decorative art in the narratives and social paradigms of earlier times, even if our own time may categorize them as kitsch.
In the exhibition, Michael Geertsen addresses this historical legacy in a dialogue structured around ten tableaux. Here, the ceramic pieces meet across the span of time, while Geertsen’s own sketches are juxtaposed with detailed historical sketches and production drawings from the Royal Copenhagen Collection, created by Arnold Krog (1856–1931) and G. F. Hetsch (1788–1964), among others. The varied material presented in the exhibition is beautifully framed by an exhibition design, created by the architect Bettina Køppe, that provides the perfect setting for the dialogic storytelling.
We thank Michael Geertsen for his courage and willingness to accept our invitation to create a dialogue exhibition based on the museum’s Royal Copenhagen Collection. Next, not least, we give our warm thanks to the leadership of Royal Copenhagen and to the skilled production staff in Glostrup for their hospitality and dedicated collaboration with Michael Geertsen to produce new pieces for the exhibition. Finally, we give a special thanks to the Royal Danish Collection for agreeing to lend exquisite pieces from Rosenborg Castle.
In this companion book to the exhibition, you can read a fascinating and openhearted conversation between Thomas Thulstrup, museum director of the Royal Danish Collection, and Michael Geertsen. You will also find an article by museum curator Christina Rauh Oxbøll about the history of the porcelain factory and the background of its donation to CLAY as well as excellent introductions to the ten exhibition tableaux by Susanne Wenningsted-Torgard (MA). The book’s elegant layout is the work of graphic designer Rasmus Koch, while photographer Dorte Krogh contributed the beautiful photographs and produced a film for the exhibition that documents Geertsen’s engagement with the historical pieces and offers a fascinating insight into his creative process and reinterpretations.
In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who contributed to the exhibition and to this book. Thanks, not least, to the many foundations that generously supported the project: the New Carlsberg Foundation, Lemvigh-Müller Fonden, Den Faberske Fond, the Augustinus Foundation, the Danish Arts Foundation, Danmarks Nationalbank’s Anniversary Foundation, the Beckett Foundation and Ellen & Knud Dalhoff Larsens Fond. Without their trust and support, it would not have been possible to realize the ambitious project, manifested in an exhibition with historical and new pieces, a film and this book.
In acknowledgement of the long journey that Royal Copenhagen has undertaken – in good times as well as more challenging times – CLAY offers heartfelt congratulations on the anniversary. We look forward to celebrating the factory and its proud history through the current exhibition, A Walk with a Dinosaur – Michael Geertsen vs. Royal Copenhagen.
Pia Wirnfeldt
Director, CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark