Foto: ©Lucas Morgand

The artists and the craftsmanship behind the Koldinghus tapestries

The four artists are Kirstine Roepstorff, Alexander Tovborg, Tal R and Bjørn Nørgaard. Each artist has based their work on themes drawing on Koldinghus as a place and history. The themes are:

Border Castle (Kirstine Roepstorff)
King’s Castle (Alexander Tovborg)
The Ruin (Tal R)
Rebuilding (Bjørn Nørgaard).

The brief for the project emphasised that the artists be given absolute artistic freedom in its execution. The assignment was not to replicate existing illustrations at Koldinghus and in Danish history, but rather for the artists to use the themes for inspiration and as a starting point for their work. As a result, the extent to which the themes find their way into the finished visual narratives varies, resulting in contemporary, imaginative and touching work by all four of the artists.

Kirstine Roepstorff, born 1972

Kirstine Roepstorff studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1994 to 2001 and at Rutgers University, Mason School of Fine Arts, USA in 2000.

Kirstine Roepstorff’s art is internationally renowned and her works can be found in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2017, Roepstorff represented Denmark at the 57th International Art Biennale in Venice and in 2018 she had her most extensive solo exhibitions to date at Trapholt in Kolding and Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen.

Kirstine Roepstorff’s art is often based on collage, and her works – collage, painting, sculpture – are everything from hushed and discreet to loud and colourful.

Alexander Tovborg, born 1983

Alexander Tovborg studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 2004 to 2010, and also studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe from 2007 to 2009.

Alexander Tovborg has presented his works at numerous solo exhibitions in Denmark and abroad. In 2013, he created a permanent decoration for the Eastern High Court in Copenhagen. A major unfolding of Tovborg’s works and practice took place at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in his largest solo exhibition to date in 2023.

With their abstract style, references to oriental decorative art, medieval images and recognisable elements, often religious or historical, Alexander Tovborg’s works draw connections to moments throughout history.

Tal R, born 1963

© Lucas Morgand

Tal R studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1994 to 2000. While studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, he was a visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. From 2005 to 2014 he was a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf. As a student at the art academy, Tal R had an exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, and since then his work has been displayed in numerous museums and collections around the world. From the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; Moderna Museet, Stockholm and Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) in Copenhagen.

Tal R works intensively with colour and composition, and his expressive and visual narratives were central to the movement of young painters in the 21st century.

Bjørn Nørgaard, born 1947

© Direction artistique Spela Lenarcic

Bjørn Nørgaard was admitted to the Experimental Art School (Eks-Skolen) in 1964 and, with the school’s other artists, became a powerhouse of the Danish experimental arts scene.

In 1980, Bjørn Nørgaard represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale with Per Kirkeby and from 1985 to 1994 he was a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. In 1986, he also served as a visiting professor at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.

Bjørn Nørgaard prefers monumental art because he believes in the legitimacy of art that engages, influences and enriches the public. To him, there’s no such thing as high culture. Art is common property and the simplest, most direct way of communicating between people. It’s where the individual and the community become one.

In 1988, Bjørn Nørgaard was chosen to create a series of tapestries in honour of HM Queen Margrethe II’s 50th birthday. The 17 tapestries, which were also created at the Gobelins Manufactory in Paris, can be seen hanging in the Knights’ Hall at Christiansborg Palace, which receives over 600,000 visitors annually. In 2025, the tapestries will celebrate their 25th anniversary.

Craftsmanship

In 1662, the French King Louis XIV took the initiative to found a series of companies that would supply his castles with the finest craftsmanship. One of these companies was the “Manufacture des Gobelins”, which would produce fine tapestries for the king’s palaces and since then the name Gobelin has been synonymous with woven tapestries. Many languages use a variant of the term gobelin to refer to a wall hanging made at the Gobelins Manufactory in Paris, while other woven wall hangings are called tapestries.

The Gobelins Manufactory still exists today as part of the company “Mobilier national et manufactures des Gobelins, de Beauvais et de la Savonnerie”. The Danish connection to the French weaving mills dates back to 1682, when Christian V ordered a number of tapestries from the French weavers.

Over 300 years later, the French workshops were once again commissioned to weave the tapestry series given to Queen Margrethe II on her 50th birthday and which are now on display at Christiansborg Palace. The “Mobilier national et manufactures des Gobelins, de Beauvais et de la Savonnerie” was therefore the obvious choice for the Koldinghus Tapestries.

Tapestry weaving is time-consuming. On average a skilled weaver can weave one square metre per year. The actual production of a tapestry hasn’t changed much since Louis XIV opened his weaving mill in 1662.

The first step in the weaving process is for the artist to create a sketch, a so-called “cartoon”, of the finished design. The cartoon is sent to the weaving mill where it is mounted behind the loom so that the weaver can always see the motif. As the weaver weaves from the back, the motif is seen through a fixed mirror so that the finished tapestry is right-side up. The tapestries are woven on vertical and horizontal looms. In the three workshops that produce the Koldinghus Tapestries, the tapestries are woven vertically in one place and horizontally in the other two.

The Koldinghus tapestries are an extensive project – a total of 108 square metres will be woven, equivalent to 108 years of work. Even for the weaving mill in France, this is a very large project that requires weaving in all three departments of the “Mobilier national et manufactures des Gobelins, de Beauvais et de la Savonnerie”. Due to the scale of the task, the Mobilier nationale has enlisted the help of a private circle of weavers in Aubusson, south of Paris, for the intermediate pieces.

The project is made possible by a generous donation from the New Carlsberg Foundation