karl monies enters another circle with luminous fungi
Inside the Copenhagen setting of the other cycle during 3daysofdesignlike a mushroom by Karl Monies light bulbs they seemed to grow out of the room itself, their copper caps rising from beds of moss and lichen as light gathered under each lip. The pieces sat low on the floor in metal trays, with cables exposed and surfaces marked by rivets, seams, oxidized blues and earthy browns.
Throughout the installation, the Danish artist and designer assembled a language that has long shaped his practice. His objects move between furniture and sculpture, between something useful and something harder to name. A lamp still gives light, but here it also behaves like a forest fragment, a hand-made instrument and a strange domestic creature.
Karl Monies in another circle, 3daysofdesign2026. image courtesy of another circle
craft as a changing language
It is presented as part of it another circle‘s interdisciplinary platform, his work designer Karl Monies joins a wider discussion around art as something alive, changeable and open to new forms. His practice includes ceramics, furniture, painting and jewellery, although the works in Copenhagen put light and landscape at the centre. The mushroom forms were drawn from his Bonum Lumen series, first developed for his solo exhibition in 2024 Macro at Etage projects.
The lamps bear the natural elements of their construction. Multi-layered metal sheets meet in visible joints, small rivets trace the body like a drawn line, and oxidized paint settles unevenly on the surfaces. Some lids slope, others widen into low shelters. Their clumsiness gives them presence, as if each piece had adapted itself while growing up.
Karl Monies in another circle, 3daysofdesign, 2026. image courtesy of another circle
from the forest to the gallery object
In his Macro solo exhibition in Copenhagen, moss bases changed the way we read light bulbs. Instead of standing as individual design objects, they formed small ecosystems, with soft green surfaces pressing against forged metal and warm light. The gallery floor became a staging ground, part forest and part workshop.
This tension has become central to Monies’ material world. His objects often start with familiar types, such as vases, lamps, containers, bottles or decorative forms, and then stretch them until they feel slightly out of time. Mushroom bulbs lean into that sentiment. They suggest folklore, fungi, shelter and decay, while their construction remains distinct.
Macro, Karl Monies, Etage Projects, Copenhagen, 2024. image courtesy of Etage Projects
vessels, symbols and hereditary forms
Monies is also known for his pottery, many of which combine polished stoneware with cork and patterned climbing rope. These containers borrow from different eras and cultures, with references that can move from sake bottles to modernist design objects. They rarely feel like direct introductions. Instead, they assemble fragments into new bodies.
His oldest Arkana The series, presented at Etage Projects in 2019, brought this symbolic dimension into greater clarity. The exhibition drew on magic, tarot and ritual instruments, treating objects as tools of thought as much as things to be used. In this sense, the container becomes a carrier of memory, beliefs and material experiments.
Macro, Karl Monies, Etage Projects, Copenhagen, 2024. image courtesy of Etage Projects
traditional craftsmanship, distorted
Karl Monies offers a view of art as heritage in motion. His work does not treat tradition as something sealed. It takes older material languages and lets them warp, glow, and evolve into more alien forms.
The mushroom lamps in the other circle make this position tangible. They contain metalwork, landscape, light and hand-crafted irregularities while resisting a single category. In the world of Monies, crafting is a way to keep items open. It lets them carry traces of the past while leaving room for rituals, uses and meanings that are still being formed.
Arcana, Karl Monies, Etage Projects, Copenhagen, 2018. image courtesy of Etage Projects
