Verdi is a curated sales exhibition that marks the start of Norway Designs NÅ; a project to highlight contemporary Norwegian designers and products. With this, Norway Designs takes up again the original ideas behind PLUS and the exhibitions "Norway Designs for living" by directing the focus back to the dissemination of Norwegian design.
The exhibition Verdi opens on 25 September in our store in Oslo. This is a collaboration with Norske Kunsthåndverkere and the Club and will show products from 14 Norwegian designers, including the founders of the Club, Sverre Uhnger and günzler.polmar, as well as ceramic designer Sara Skotte.
Verdi will focus both on the history of the three actors, as well as look at what lies behind today's design and handicraft products. There will be a focus on the processes behind the products and different production methods, and the products will be presented in different stages; from prototypes to small-scale production and mass production. The public will be able to recognize this at the different price levels and thus gain an insight into, and an understanding of, the value of the objects.
Exhibitors:
Kristine Bjaadal
Heidi Bjørgan
Lars Olav Dybdal
Kristine Five Melvær
Victoria Gunzler
Thomas Jenkins
Runa Klock
Geir Nustad
Sara Wright Polmar
Margit Seland
Sarah Scott
Wilhelm Grieg Teisner
Åse-Marit Thorbjørnsrud
Sverre Uhnger
Background story
The origin of Norway Designs was the exhibition "Norway Designs for living", which was shown for the first time in Chicago in 1951 and until 1953 in four other places in the USA. The purpose of the exhibition was to promote the export of Norwegian goods and was one of the first exhibitions to market Norwegian design products in the USA. In 1957, the store Norway Designs was established in Oslo, then with the aim of promoting Norwegian design products and handicrafts in Norway.
In 1958, the organization PLUS was started in the Old Town in Fredrikstad. PLUS was started to be a mediation center between designers and the industry, to create a meeting point where it would make it easier for both parties to get ideas off the drawing board and into production. Throughout PLUS's lifetime (1978), Norway Designs was a distributor of everything that was produced there. Much of Norwegian design history from the period 1958-1978 has its origins in PLUS.
