Jonas Bohlin

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Jonas Bohlin

 

Being a designer with an artistical approach to his work, Jonas Bohlin always crosses the borderlines — but without losing the connections. The connections to architecture, to functions, to life itself.

Since the beginning of his career the mixture of emotion and common sense in design has been the very means for his success. As much as you never can separate a design’s form from its function, you’re not able to distinguish its emotional contents from its value.

Jonas Bohlin started off by making a kind of scandalous success in terms of offended Swedish functionalism at the 1981 graduation show at Konstfack, the National College of Arts, Craft and Design, in Stockholm. We never quite recoverd from the shock his chair "Concrete" created in the Swedish design community. Being meant as a piece of sculpture in an artistic installation, the chair of steel and concrete was obviuosly epitomizing a Swedish idea of post-modernism, why it was produced in a limited edition, and is currently a collector’s item.

Bohlin’s works range from furniture, light fittings, glass and textiles, to art objects and installations. It also comprises huge projects, like the creation of a new design education or an eighteen months long happening, comprising the build of a traditional, Swedish boat for fuor rowers, and climaxing in a three month rowing session on the channels of Europe, from Stockholm to Paris.

That project was called LIV, the Swedish word for life (also Latin for 54 — the total number of rowers!), and Jonas Bohlin was truly "rowing for life". Not only his own, as it came out, but also that of his wife and of his son, who was born almost on the same day as the succeding exhibition LIV opened in Stockholm in the spring of 1997.

LIV also gave birth to a lot of new Bohlin design. A range of objects which are natural new members of the big family of things — members but still individuals. To me Jonas Bohlin’s design always have a very sociable quality — they are great friends in an otherwise mixed company.

Ulf Beckman
Editor, FORM Design Magazine
1998-07-01

 

CURRICULUM VITAE
Jonas Bohlin, born 1953
GCE at A level from technical high school , Stockholm 1974
Examined Interior Architect from Konstfack, The National College of Art, Craft and Design, Stockholm 1981
JB is married and has one child (a son born in ’97).
He lives and works in Stockholm.

 

ENTERPRISES
Jonas Bohlin Architectual Office 1983-
Art -and design gallery "Stockholm Mobile" 1985-87
Professor, Beckman’s School of Design 1988-96
Head of Form course, Beckman’s School of Design 1992-96
Chairman of SIR, The National Association of Swedish Interior Architects 1991-93
Associate of The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts 1997-
Member of Brindfors Design 1997-
Jonas Bohlin Design Company 1998-
Board member of The National Museum & Prins Eugen’s Valdemarsudde 2000

 

REPRESENTATION
Centre Culturel Suedois (Sweden´s cultural centre), Paris
Jönköpings läns museum (The County Museum of Jönköping), JönköpingKunstindustrimuseum (The Industrial Art Museum), CopenhagenMalmö Kontsmuseer (The Art Museum of Malmö), MalmöMusikaliska Akademien (The Academy of Music), StockholmNationalmuseum (The National Art Gallery) Stockholm
Röhsska museet (The Röhss’ Museum), Gothenburg
Rooseum Konsthall (Rooseum Art gallery), Malmö

 

PRIZES/AWARDS/GRANTS
Scholarship of Konstfack,
The National College of Art, Craft and Design 1981
Scholarship of Svensk Form,
The SwedishSociety of Crafts and Design 1981
Excellent Swedish Design, Honorary Mention 1983
State Cultural Grant 1984
Grant from The Estrid Ericson Foundation 1985
Grant from The Swedish Board of Fine Arts 1986
The Georg Jensen Prize 1988
Best Interior of The Year, chosen by Forum, magazine of SIR 1989
Excellent Swedish Design, Honorary Mention 1992
Project Grant from The Swedish State Fund for the Arts 1994
The Major Grant of The Swedish State Fund for the Arts 1997
Furniture of the Year, magazine of Sköna Hem 1997
1900th century in Architeture, magazine FORUM närmiljö 2000
Excellent Swedish Design Prize 2001

 

EXHIBITIONS
"Labyrinth Formula", Konstfack, Stockholm 1981
"Young Furniture Designers", Swedish Furniture Fair, Stockholm 1982
"Provocations", The Culture House, Stockholm 1982
"Excellent Swedish Design", Gallery Heland, Stockholm 1983
"SIR-Rooms", The Culture House, Stockholm 1983
"New Swedish Furniture", ASF Gallery, New York 1985
"Excellent Swedish Design", Design Center, Stockholm 1985
"Excellent Swedish Design", travelling exhibition Australia-Canada 1985
"Art and Craft 100 Years", The National Art Gallery, Stockholm 1985
"Material Pleasure", Queens’ Museum, New York 1985
"Stockholm Mobile", opening exhibition at Stockholm Mobile 1986
" Furniture & Clothes", Konstförmedlarna gallery, Stockholm 1986
"Excellent Småländsk Design", Kalmar County Museum, Kalmar 1986
"Nordic Furniture Design", Form/Design Center, Malmö 1986
"Hommage". Lilla Nyborg Gallery, Borgholm 1987
"SAD", Grand Palais, Paris 1987
"A Way of Life", travelling exhibition, Tokyo a.o. 1987
"Thing Take Place", Liljevalchs Art Gallery, Stockholm 1988
"Excellent Småländsk Design", travelling exhibition in the USA 1988
"Excellent Swedish Design", travelling exhibition in the USA 1988
"Asplund/Bohlin/Kandell", Svenskt Tenn Shop Gallery, Stockholm 1988
"Design Art", IDZ, International Design Centre, Berlin 1988
"The Georg Jensen Prize", Illums Bolighus Shop Galleryand Kunstindustrimuseet, The Industrial Art Museum, Copenhagen 1988
Centre Culturel Suedois, (Sweden’s Cultural Centre), Paris 1989
"Art Form", exhibition travelling in Sweden 1990
"Blue Firewood", Konstförmedlarna Gallery, Stockolm 1990
"Swedish Design", exhibition travelling in India 1991-92
"Plucked From the Ear", Swedish Embassy, Tokyo 1991
"Källemo Furniture", Swedish Embassy, Tokyo 1991
"Four Furniture Designers — Mathsson/Chambert/Kandell/Bohlin,
The National Art Gallery, Stockholm 1993
"Furniture art from Källemo", Kamras galley, Borgholm 1993
"Nordic Profiles", The National Art Gallery,
"Stockholm/Travelling exhibition in the Nordic countries 1994
New Swedish Art", Banegaarden, Aabenraa, Denmark 1995
"LIV", Färgfabriken Gallery, Stockholm 1997
"Nordic Touch", Kalmar Art Museum, Kalmar 1997
"Swedish Board of the Fine Arts", Royal Academy of Art, Stockhom 1997
"Sven Lundh’s Eye", Färgfabriken Gallery, Stockholm 1998
Øksnehallen, Copenhagen, 1999
New Scandinavian Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Cologne andNeue Sammlung, Munich 1999
Byhuset, Österund 1999
"Sweden Builds", The Museum of Architecture, Stockholm 1999
"The Modern Form" 1900/2000
The National Art Gallery 1999
"Angles Suedois", travelling exhibition in Europe 2000-
"The Biennale of Design", St Etienne, France 2000
"3D" Travelling exhibition Bruxelles-Berlin 2000-

 

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
Stockholm Mobile Gallery, Stockholm 1985
Private apartment for art collector Fredrik Roos, Stockholm 1988
Rolf Kök, Rolf’s Kitchen restaurant, in collaboration with Thomas Sandell, Stockholm 1989
ESK, Security Conference, Stockholm/the Älvsjö Fair, in collaboration with Jerry Hellström 1992
Rolf’s Bar, Stockholm 1994
Sturehof, restaurant, Stockholm 1995-98
Svensk Form, Swedish Design Council, Stockholm 2000
Leo Burnett, Stockholm 2001
Herr Nilsson, restaurant, Stockholm 2001
Spring, restaurant, Stockholm 2001
Combo, restaurant, Stockholm 2001

 

PROJECTS
Stockholm Mobile, design and art gallery, Stockholm 1985-87
The "Form course", Beckman’s School of design, Stockholm, idea and responsable leadership 1992-96
"LIV", boat-buildning, -rowing and exhibition, Stockholm-Paris 1994-97

 

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