HARD EDGES, SOFT MATERIALS: Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl and Sho Ota
New exhibition – 22 May to 28 June 2025
Ceramic exhibition space Peach Corner in Copenhagen presents new exhibition with Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl and Sho Ota.
In the exhibition, Danish ceramic artist Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl has invited Japanese designer Sho Ota to engage in a dialogue grounded in their shared interest in exploring the fundamental properties of their respective materials; Kaldahl working with ceramics and Sho Ota working mainly in wood.
In Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl’s ceramic pieces for this exhibition, forms appear from and in the clay as a lump. He places the lump, the material, on a pedestal. The transitions between base and figure and the conventional roles assigned to them are blurred. In a playful and explorative approach, he demonstrates the different sculptural behaviours of clay as a natural substance and maintains its expression throughout the ceramic process, drying and firing. The thick viscous mass of clay that finds its own way and shapes its own form, driven by gravity. In the process, the material’s clear statement of softness and malleability is transformed into hardness and stability but always maintains the ceramic material’s inherent fragility.
Kaldahl’s method in this process is to initiate the material’s own behaviour and follow along; responding to and perhaps contrasting the pure natural movement. Adding visual elements that invite the viewer inside the lump, turning it into a complex object, a sculpture.
Sho Ota trained as a furniture designer in Japan and at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, where he has lived and worked since 2018. His unique approach to furniture and other objects springs from the intersection of industrial production and individual craftsmanship. He creates serial works (for example According to the Grain, 2021) by carefully carving into the layers of the wood to chisel out the knots and expose the internal structure of the material. In other series, such as Surfaced, which is represented in the exhibition, he glues together a structure from cut pieces of wood – mainly production offcuts – which he carves to bring out details that define the object with both open gaps and solidity and a focus on the different textures of the wood.
Sho Ota’s new pieces in the exhibition at Peach Corner are sculptural objects that have maintained a basic functional tone, but above all, they are poetic visual expressions that explore our relationship with nature. They clearly appear as constructed natural forms that accentuate and highlight the inseparable poles of our perceptions of wood: the free-growing organism versus the sawn-up and glued-together material. Natural growth versus high-precision craftmanship. Soft and hard – and vice versa.
3daysofdesign 2025
Peach Corner will be showing two concurrent exhibitions during 3daysofdesign – Copenhagen’s annual design festival, 18-20 June 2025.
In Peach Corner’s permanent exhibition space at Howitzvej 67A the exhibition on show is Hard Edges, Soft Materials with Sho Ota and Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl. It will be open daily 13.00–18.00 throughout 3daysofdesign. On Thursday, 19 June, Peach Corner extends the opening hours of the gallery to 20.00. From 18.30, the gallery hosts an artist talk with both artists, moderated by Annie Carlano, Senior Curator at the Mint Museum, North Carolina, USA.
In a special venue in central Copenhagen, Peach Corner presents a group exhibition titled Functional Clay. The exhibition is set in Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Studio at Frederiksholms Kanal 28 B – an old, historical studio that is not normally open to the public. The exhibition presents new ceramic works by 15 makers and designers from Denmark: Amalie Vöge Jensen, Anne Tophøj, Birgit Marie Østerby, Cecilie Manz, Chris Liljenberg Halstrøm, Claydies (Tine Broksø and Karen Kjældgård-Larsen), Depping & Jørgensen (Line Depping and Jakob Jørgensen), Hilda Piazzolla, Jeppe Søndergaard Hansen, Michael Geertsen, Ole Jensen, Petra Dalström, and Zuzanna Skurka.
