Design | Ole Jensen’s Basic Bar for Serving Water at Milan Design Week

Ole Jensen’s “Basic Bar” is certainly that— no fluff, no frills, a straightforward concept that excels because of its stripped-down nature.

Jensen created the work for Mindcraft, an exhibition of Danish designs showcased in Milan during design week. The showcase had an equally-engaging setting, but more on that in a moment.

“Basic Bar” includes a red clay water jug and cups sitting on a pinewood bar balanced on two blocks of red clay. The dappled texture of the jug is adorned only with the chemical formula for water, painted on with a stencil. This set is everything it claims to be and it doesn’t have a scrap of supplemental detail.

Mindcraft states of the work:

In its simple form and familiar materials, it points as much to our shared human past as it does to the future. It may appear as a symbolic sign or a still life, but it also defines a functional place for the everyday act of having a drink of water, indoors or out. The inspiration for the bar came in part from Ole Jensen’s latest exhibition, The Opening, where all the works on display were related to the event of an exhibition opening. The MINDCRAFT15 exhibition venue, the San Simpliciano Cloister in Milan, inspired the simple and functional character of the object. In Ole Jensen’s own description, the production process was similarly basic: conception and drawing; shaping and firing; sawing and planning.

Mindcraft exhibited this and other works with the help of GamFratesi studio. According to Dezeen, the show took place at Chiostro Minoredi San Simpliciano, a historic religious cloister in Milan. They covered the floor of the courtyard in mirrors, the different designs were shown inside black metal cages. In a way the mirrors expand the sense of space, but they appropriately give Jensen’s jug the suggestion of a watery environment.

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