Copenhagen’s historical Tivoli Gardens is the venue of The Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition 2020. A legendary attraction designed to seduce, with its varied settings and architectural styles. A hybrid fairy tale with amusements, culture and magical experiences, a place of beautiful shared moments and a theatrical urban space shaped by the Gardens’ more than 175-year-long history.
This year’s Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition celebrates illusions, as the association’s members and guest exhibitors address Tivoli as a whole and the magical setting of Poul Henningsen and Gudmund Nyeland Brandt’s Parterre Garden in both concrete and abstract terms. In the sensuous Parterre Garden, the exhibition’s 30 furniture projects are shown suspended in mid-air among perennials, flower beds and trickling water.
The 30 unique furniture exhibits created under this year’s broad and imaginative theme range from an insect hotel, a chair that is gradually transformed by the flowers in the garden, a table with optical patterns that trick the brain, a transparent chair where the surroundings fuse with the material, a community-oriented world clock and a triple bird feeder to a variety of funhouse mirror designs, enclosing furniture spaces and illusory furniture sculptures. In other words, the audience can expect to find diversity and site-specific interpretations among this year’s experimental furniture designs created by some of Denmark’s leading architects, designers and manufacturers.
‘Tivoli is in itself an illusion – an artificial, man-made world that is reflected in ours. We have long dreamt of exhibiting at Tivoli, because the Gardens attract a wide audience that goes beyond dedicated furniture enthusiasts. The Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition seeks broad exposure, and moreover, Tivoli is already full of great design. We also felt that our members needed, perhaps, a little more levity after a couple of fairly rational exhibitions about craftsmanship at Thorvaldsens Museum and sustainability at the Danish Architecture Center, DAC. So I expect to see designs that push the boundaries and spark debate about whether they should even be categorized as furniture – and about what furniture is and should be able to do,’ says the association’s chairman, Claus Mølgaard.
The Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition 2020 is on display in the Tivoli Gardens for two months. The exhibits need to be able to stand up to wind and weather and have a maximum diameter of 90 cm. With this year’s abstract and seductive theme in the hands of the professionals, there is no doubt that several exhibits will live up to Tivoli’s slogan: ‘Always like never before.’
