The 2011 Phillips sale “Important Nordic Design” showcased works by Danish, Swedish, and Finnish mid-century icons — Finn Juhl, Bruno Mathsson, and Alvar Aalto among them — but was curiously bereft of any Norwegians. “I think the biggest reason is actually our oil," says Arvild Bruun, who runs a hybrid coffee shop and mid-century showroom in Oslo called Fuglen (Norwegian for “bird") with its co-founders, furniture dealer Peppe Trulsen and 2007 Norwegian barista champion Einar Holthe. Although Norway won international gold medals for its designs in the 1950s and '60s, on a level with Hans Wegner and Charles and Ray Eames, over time, the country's designers faded from the historical narrative. “When we found the oil [in the '50s and '60s], we kind of shifted all of our priorities to extracting it," Bruun says. "The Danes continued to tell about their design heritage."
Fuglen is not only reviving this story but bringing it to New York this month in not one, but three exhibitions. In addition to a booth at this weekend's Collective Design Fair and a show of protypes by young Norwegian designers that Fuglen will co-curate at the behemoth International Contemporary Furniture Fair starting May 17, the dealers are showing “Norwegian Icons: Important Norwegian Design,” from May 23 through June 1 at Soho's Openhouse Gallery. Featuring a cross-section of wares produced by midcentury Norwegian craftsmen and a handful of Edvard Munch works (thanks to collaborator Blomqvist gallery), the show was first mounted in Oslo in January 2013, then again in Tokyo that June, as a response to Phillips’ oversight. Fuglen’s main goal was to educate, to bridge the “gap in knowledge about the Norwegian branch of the Scandinavian mid-century,” says Holthe.
In order to do that, the trio sought out craft objects from barns and attics across the Norwegian countryside. The separation of rural villages by forests and mountains resulted in a vast diversity of small-scale production in the last century: a wide variety of ceramics, leather goods, and beautifully sculpted wood furniture. As for prices, “We're still miles behind the Arne Jacobsens or other Danish icons," according to Holthe. "Compared to where we want to go, we're still cheap" (Jacobsen's 1962 Oxford Chair was estimated at $33,000-$40,000 at the Phillips sale; Fuglen recently sold a Torbjørn Afdal armchair for $500) — although that looks likely to change in the near future.
To see a slideshow preview of highlights from the “Norwegian Icons: Important Norwegian Design" exhibition, click here.
