Pettersen & Hein Merge Art And Design

Pettersen & Hein is the Copenhagen-based studio of Danish furniture designer Lea Hein and Norwegian artist Magnus Pettersen. In the true spirit of collaborative work, their joint practice is concerned with breaking down the boundaries between their two respective disciplines.

The about page of Pettersen & Hein ponders big questions in its opening lines: “What happens when design is no longer compromised by function but longs for the aesthetic and ethical freedom of art?”. The studio’s work deliberates over this quandary in each piece it creates. Artist-polymath Richard Artschwager, whose work ranged from sculpture to painting, once said, “If you sit on it, it’s a chair- If you walk around it and look at it, it’s a sculpture.” The work of this young design pair argues the same; their concrete cast work is deliberately sculptural and formally beautiful. In making pieces that are also functional — be it as lamps, seats or stools — they offer a blurring of genres, albeit one that seems more heavily weighted towards art.