VietnamPlus: Ceramic relief makes Danish artist known to Hanoians

Michael Geertsen from Denmark became the first North-European artist to display an art work as part of a community art project co-funded by the Cultural Development and Exchange Fund (CDEF). The inauguration of the Danish artist’s ceramic relief at the Long Bien bus stop on April 16 was attended by Danish Ambassador Peter Lysolt Hansen, who described Geertsen’s work as a “Ceramic wall of the Denmark-Vietnam friendship”.

         

His picture, made of blocks colourful with red, orange, blue and yellow, has brightened a section of the Red River dyke.
It has given first eye catch as a mosaic of abstract industrial blocks, which in fact are ceramic pots, bowls, and dishes that he made by himself and put together on a special rhythm in the shape of Gothic arch, circle and cylinder. His talent has turned real objects into abstract art with a moving structure.

Geertsen had worked hard for one month and a half in Vietnam to make the 60 sq.m. relief to contribute to the “ Hanoi Ceramic Mosaic Mural” project as a gift to the Vietnamese capital city’s millennium anniversary to fall on October 10, 2010.
The Danish artist confided in taking invitation from the Hanoi Ceramic Mosaic Mural project executive that he did not want to miss an opportunity to challenge himself with an outdoor tremendous ceramic work in a wonderful community art project. He added that it was also an opportunity for him to leave a mark of his art in an Asian country of rich ceramic tradition.

                     Michael Geertsen and the Vietnamese artisans at the site.

M. Geertsen was born in 1966 and has left his marks in a number of countries such as the Art and Design Museum in New York , the Victoria & Art Museum in Lon Don as well as in Germany , the Republic of Korea and China , in addition to many museums in his native land. He has also won many prizes on ceramic designs in Denmark, the US, Belgium, the RoK and Germany . Geertsen is running his own ceramic workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark./.

            Danish Ambassador Peter Lysolt Hansen, Vietnam's Association of Fine-Arts Chairman Tran Khanh Chuong, the Hanoi Ceramic Mosaic Mural Founder Nguyen Thu Thuy and other guests at the site.