Symposium: Re-thinking and Re-positioning Nordic Modernism
Kunstsilo, Kristiansand
Northern light, deep forests, and psychological existentialism may be the essence of Nordic Art. The appeal of the “Nordic“ has been a recurrent phenomenon in art since at least Allaert van Everdingen´s 17th century depictions of Scandinavian landscapes, trough the “Nordic Golden Age” of late 19th century art until the Nordic wave in contemporary art of the 1990s. Symptomatically, Nordic art is, in a global context, to a large extent associated with a few canonical names of late 19th century art, such as Edvard Munch, August Strindberg, Helene Schjerfbeck, Vilhelm Hammersøi and Akseli Gallen-Kallela – Asger Jorn being a 20th century exception. This has been fostered through a vast number of exhibitions focusing on these artists, or in broader survey exhibitions including these artists in explorations of an idea of the Nordic.
However, in recent years there has been several exhibitions broadening the scope of Nordic art on the international art scene, among others Hilma af Klint, Hannah Ryggen and Sonja Ferlov Mancoba. Yet, in the context of global art history, post-colonialism, multiculturalism and de-canonization, does it make sense to speak of Nordic Art? If so, what constitutes the Nordic, and what makes it relevant to the world of today? Furthermore, how should museums in the Nordic region deal its own art history in a global context? What stories should and could be told? And, maybe most significantly, how can the canon of Nordic art in a global context be broadened and is such an undertaking at all relevant?
25. September
09:00
Reidar Fuglestad (Director, Kunstsilo): Welcomming Speech
Karl Olav Segrov Mortensen (Curator, Kunstsilo): Introductory Remarks
Angela Lampe, (Curator of the Pompidou Centre), Bosse Nilsson (director, Artipelag), Janne Sirén (director, Buffalo AGK Art Museum).
Session I: Re-thinking Nordic Art
09:30
Keynote speaker Angela Lampe from Centre Pompidou
10:15
Coffee break
10:30
Jonas Ekeberg in conversation with Janne Sirén (Director, Buffalo AGK Art Museum), Lars Toft-Eriksen (Curator at Munch), and Ulf Küster (Curator, Foundation Beyeler): Re-thinking the Nordic: What does the Nordic represent? What relevance does it have in an international context? And how can we re-conceptualise the Nordic in a contemporary perspective?
11:30
Tour of Kunstsilo
12:15
Lunch
Session II: Re-positioning Nordic Art
13:30
The Success of Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, and Asger Jorn.
Bosse Nilsson Director Artipelag, in conversation with Chief Curator and Senior Researcher, Statens Museum for kunst Dorte Aagesen and Jacob Thage, former Director Museum Jorn.
14:30
Jonas Ekeberg in online conversation with Karin Hindsbo, Director Tate Modern.
14:50
Jonas Ekeberg in conversation with Lisbeth Skregelid (Professor, Agder University), Frank Falck (curator Kunstsilo), Hanne Cecilie Gulstad (curator Kunstsilo): On Kunstsilo, the collection and Nordic Modernism in a wider perspective.
15:30
Øystein Sjåstad (Professor, University of Oslo): Summary and Critical Remarks
16:00
End