Before the visit

Open hours 2019PricesFind your wayGuided tourFor groups

About the Museum

You may think you know paper. The thin sheets or fibres that constitute a natural part of our everyday lives: Writing paper. Baking paper. Wrapping paper. Copy paper. But paper is so much more.

When you step into the Museum for Paper Art, a whole new world will unfold before your eyes. A world of sensory perceptions that will change the way you see the fine, white material. Museum for Paper Art is the only art centre in Scandinavia that focuses solely on paper: cut, folded, shaped, ripped, or carved. We invite you to experience impressive and fascinating contemporary paper art, crafts, and design by national and international artists.

A new kind of heartbeat

Stepping into our exhibitions, you will feel time moving a little bit slower. Paper art is the epitome of slow art – for the artist as well as the spectator. So leave time behind for a moment and get lost in captivating works that will make you stop and wonder – a much-welcomed break from a restless, fast-moving, and demanding world. Museum for Paper Art is a haven and a place for peace and reflection. A place where you can enjoy the here and now and just let yourself get carried away.

Paper as a creative material

Paper is a fascinating material, which has played a central role in our society for centuries. The fine sheets of fibres have connected people and cultures for ages, enabling us to write down laws, love poems, and historical events. We have used it to exchange ideas and to communicate, to write letters and contracts. Today most of our communication takes place online, and the role of paper in everyday life has changed significantly. But the diverse material holds a vast potential that goes way beyond its traditional use. Paper also makes for great art – psaligraphy, origami, decoupage, sculpture, and other impressive forms of expression.

Visitors’ shop

The assortment includes beautiful handmade note books, interior design, postcards, porcelain tableware with paper décor cut, handmade paper crafts, art, wowen rugs, a big selection of Christmas products, and much, much more.

Looking for a present for that birthday, or for your dinner host – or something for a wedding party, or a confirmation gift? Come find it here.

Our gift shop features beautifully hand-crafted notebooks, postcards, China with paper cuttings, handmade paper, scissors, handicraft, books, a large selection of Christmas products, salted and dried cod (airsealed!), and edible paper – to mention just a few things from our offerings.

Married a year ago? Then it’s time for your paper wedding anniversary! Come visit our shop to enjoy our great selection of beautiful flower decorations for your party. Let us help you celebrate your happiness.

Bit Vejle’s numbered and signed artworks are sold in the shop. A choice of Bit Vejle’s unique paper designs are also on sale on the internet.

Café

 

In our café, you can enjoy a delicious array of refreshments and artistic taste sensations from local manufacturers. Try our sandwiches with locally sourced meats, cakes, or ice cream from Ryå.

 

Menu

BeveragesSomething SweetLunch

Paper Studio

In a digital era, where time is a scarce resource, it is more crucial than ever that we let our imagination and creativity run free. That we nurture the urge to create that lies in all of us, and immerse in something that challenges our imagination and fine motor control.

Our paper studio is a place to do just that. Here, we make room for curiosity, explore paper as a creative material, and stimulate innovation in adults as well as children.

In our paper studio, you can let out your inner paper artist and try your hands at arts and crafts, Danish ‘gaekkebreve’, origami or paper silhouettes – with help and guidance from professionals, of course. Design your own lamp shade, fold a paper plane, build a kite, or make the prettiest invitations, place cards, or paper boxes.

Don’t forget to try the SILHOUETTE CABINET

In the shop, you can buy several creative paper projects. See the projects in the peek cabinet by the Studio.

Scissors for a Brush

Leave time behind, and step into the captivating and magical world of Bit Vejle, a Danish-Norwegian artist who cuts beautiful stories in paper. In our permanent exhibition, the world-renowned artist shows a wide selection of the many impressive works that she has created with her sewing scissors over the past 30 years.

Bit Vejle opened her first exhibition at the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Trondheim, Norway in 2008, and since then her works have been exhibited in prominent museums such as The National Museum in Stockholm, Victoria & Albert in London, Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, To Day Art Museum in Beijing, and H.C. Andersen’s House in Odense. In addition to her many exhibitions, which have broken visitor records worldwide, Bit Vejle has collaborated with a vast number of exclusive brands. She has conducted commissioned work for the French fashion house Hermés, Hilton Hotels, Porsgrund Porcelain Factory, Nidaros Cathedral, Røros Tweed, and Georg Jensen.

Bit Vejle’s imagery is narrative and consists of beautiful motifs, but her artworks are more than delicate flowers and birds. In each cut, a unique story unfolds, inviting the spectator to interpret and reflect. Some confront deep seriousness, while others simply celebrate the joy in the small things. In several works, you will be able to spot Bit’s take on a modern heroin, Ballerina Bulldog. At first glance, she may appear to be but a tender ballerina. In reality she is powerful, as are her power tools, which she uses to make smart choices on her balancing act through life.

Painting with scissorsSlow ArtFilm, sound and light

Poetry in Paper

4. October 2019 – 18. March 2020

Paper is a fascinating material that has been a part of our everyday for many years. The exhibition Poetry in Paper explores art made from paper.

Experience the book in new and surprising forms when artists from around the world recreate paper into new and fascinating stories.

Contributing artists:

Su Blackwell

Su Blackwell (1975) is an English artist whose sculptural universe exudes inspiration from the world of fairy-tale. The Little Match Girl is a diorama sculptured from books installed in a lighted peep show box.

Blackwell’s works explore different atmospheres in which a sense of melancholy and the loss of childhood innocence are brought into play. Su Blackwell has also illustrated the anthology The Fairytale Princess with her book sculptures. Read more about Su Blackwell on her website.

Amanda Betz

The artist and architect Amanda Betz (1978) works in a universe that challenges and tests the limits of the paper’s potentials. In Close to Nature artworks and objects are combined with poems, thus creating a symbiosis of paper artwork and words.

The meeting of Betz’ art and the poems by Peder Frederik (1978) resulted in a work inspired by the Japanese garden and their love of Danish cornfields alike. Read more about Amanda Betz on her website.

Cecilia Levy

The Swedish artist Cecilia Levy’s (1963) contribution consists of a large number of multi-facetted objects created from old books. Levy rethinks and transforms the traditional connotations of the book’s potential.

Her recreation of paper into new forms exploits the unexpected materials to encourage the spectator to observe and reflect in new and unwonted ways.

Read more about Cecilia Levy on her website.

Brian Dettmer

Brian Dettmer is an American artist whose sculptural work centres on the book and how it can be sculpturally transformed. Western Civilization belongs to a work series cut from the eponymous reference book.

The surgical precision of the artists’ processing of varnished and sealed books allows the different aspects of the books to reveal themselves in new ways.

Adrien Mondot & Claire Bardainne

With Snow does not make sense the French artist duo Adrien M (1979) and Claire B (1978) place themselves in the crossroads between the book’s tactile tangibility and modern digital and interactive technology.

In the book, which is a retrospective of the artists’ careers and their work, the artists’ play with technology emerges clearly in the required interaction between the book and its dedicated app. Read more about on the artists website.

 

Mette Olsen og Tinne Delfs

With their work Perler (Pearls) the Aarhus-based artist duo Mette Olsen (1953) and Tinne Delfs (1957) have retrived and transformed literary pearls by four Danish women writers as real strings of pearls.

Underscoring the inherent playfulness of the work, the pearls were created from book pulp and finished in a way that recalls real pearls. Apart from the actual strings of pearls, Perler shows photographic images of four living female authors carrying the pearls in a symbolical transfer of our cultural heritage.

Ballerina Bulldog

The Ballerina Bulldog brings on her life’s journey a number of different power tools (inner strengths), which she produces and uses when in need of extra power. She finds her life power in her heart. The Bulldog is by far the Ballerina’s most important power tool. Hardly a beauty, the Bulldog has personality – and is faithful! The Bulldog thus symbolizes the need to be yourself and to be true to who you are.

The Ballerina Bulldog concept is depicted in 22 paper cuttings with the Ballerina Bulldog character in the title role.

It is no coincidence that Bit Vejle chose a ballerina as her lead character for this concept. The Ballerina was not cast because of her good looks – quite the opposite! She symbolizes what human beings can achieve when they apply themselves to the task. A ballerina has many, many years of extremely demanding and dedicated work ahead of her before she achieves the utmost in her art.

This concept is rooted in Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy. Kierkegaard speaks of the path of life that we all walk (the Ballerina’s line). In the course of life, the path will sometimes divide into two. We are forced to stop, think deeply, and decide whether to turn left or to turn right. We must make a decision and continue along the life path we have chosen. And … the wonderful thing is that another fork will appear at another point in the road – offering us the chance to make a new and even wiser choice.

The Ballerina Bulldog’s power tools

On her tightrope dance through life, the Ballerina Bulldog unpacks her power tools when faced with challenges that demand a solution. The power tools remind us that we all possess strong inner powers when we need them.

BULLDOG	Yelp when life bites, and be true to yourself.
KEY	It is in your power to open up or lock away things in life.
HEART	Put your whole heart into everything that you do.
DOVE	Make peace with yourself and your neighbour.
BUMBLBEE	If you want it badly enough, the impossible is possible.
POWER TOOL	You can move mountains.
MAGIC WAND	Create magic in your own life.
46664	Forgive, as Nelson Mandela did.
HAND MIXER	Wip up the mood when it’s needed.
BUTTERFLY	You can always change.
SISSORS	Use your creative powers.
CROWN	You are the queen of your own life. You define the laws and the rules for how your life should be lived.
HOURGLASS	Take care of the time you have – use it well.
DICE	Dare take chances.
CAKE	Remember to sweeten your life.
VIOLIN	Listen and find your life’s melody.
ANCHOR	Never give up hope.
CROSS	Belive in something larger than yourself.
FORK	Eat wisely and take care of your body.
LOCK	Solidarity and loyalty give strenght.
REVOLVER	Aim at your goals.
WINGS	Use your imagination to discover new possibilities.

 

The Ballerina Bulldog shows the way for children and young people

Today’s children and young people are facing great demands – and many children and young people place unreasonably high demands on themselves. Such pressure can become so intense that serious problems may arise.

Figuratively speaking, the young generation find themselves on a difficult tightrope dance as they begin life. Every day, they must balance the massive requirements from the world around them, other’s ideals, and their own ideals, all of which are hard to live up to. They try to adapt and acquire the characteristics that they believe are expected from them. This means that they lose, or never get in contact with, their own unique, personal attributes and strengths. The result is unhappiness and, in the worst case, mental and physical illness.

Could it be that a role model in which they could mirror themselves might help? We need the Ballerina Bulldog on the field.

Like many children and young people, the Ballerina Bulldog can no longer stand to live up to all these intense demands. She has therefore decided to find her own way of balancing on her path through life. And she is happy to pass on her coping skills to other people.

The Ballerina Bulldog’s vision

The Ballerina Bulldog concept is here to bring joy to children and young people, to motivate them to become conscious of their inner strengths, and to inspire them to be the best version of themselves.

Former exhibitions

The Paper DialoguesHerman CoppusAbove Earth BelowGeck letters to…The Museum for Paper Art in the Making

Employees

Employees

Behind the Museum

Artistic advisory boardNordic Group of CollaborationAcknowledgements