Queen Sonja of Norway has described artwork as a “unifying pressure” at a time when politics has turn out to be notably polarised, not solely in Europe however throughout the globe. Proper wing and far-right events are anticipated to realize floor within the European elections this week, although Norway is just not part of the EU so Norwegians won’t be voting.
Talking on the Queen Sonja Print Award (QPSA) ceremony in Bodø, northern Norway on Wednesday night, the queen highlighted the significance of open communication and tradition in “turbulent instances”. She added: “We simply should go on.” Bodø is considered one of three European Capitals of Tradition in 2024, with at the least 1,000 occasions scheduled for all year long.
The historian and tv presenter Simon Schama, who gave a chat on the historical past of printmaking and the work of Anselm Kiefer, thanked Queen Sonja, not just for her “extraordinary work selling the significance of graphic artwork”, however for additionally being “a guardian angel for the integrity of tradition” now that the “threatening age of AI is upon us”.
Kiefer was awarded the Queen Sonja Print Award Lifetime Achievement Award, whereas the Sámi artist Tomas Colbengtson received the Queen Sonja Print Award 2024 and the Swedish artist Maria Kayo Mpoyi received the QSPA Inspirational Award. Queen Sonja stated she was “delighted” that this yr’s prestigious award had gone to a Sámi artist. “Tomas Colbengtson’s work is already represented in museum collections and I hope this prize will make his work know much more broadly internationally,” she stated.
Sámi artist Tomas Colbengtson is the recepient of The Queen Sonja Print Award for 2024 Photograph by Elisabeth Ohlson
Cultural destruction
Colbengtson spoke of his anger at how Sámi tradition was all however destroyed in Norway within the first half of the twentieth century. In the present day there’s a renewed give attention to Sámi tradition and artwork, although Indigenous communities are nonetheless going through the lack of their livelihoods and identities, attributable to a failure to respect their rights. In Norway, makes an attempt to transition from oil and fuel to wind energy have meant that areas of land historically utilized by Sámi individuals to graze reindeer have been taken over for generators.
One of many measures of nice artwork is that it’s possible to present you insomnia
Simon Schama, historian
Battle fairly than peace was on the coronary heart of Schama’s speak on printmaking. The historian reluctantly took problem with the Norwegian playwright and Nobel Prize winner Jon Fosse, who stated in March that “Conflict and artwork are opposites, simply as warfare and peace are opposites—it’s so simple as that. Artwork is peace.”
Schama countered: “It will be good to assume that artwork was the conveyor of peace. However I’m frankly undecided about this. I don’t know that anybody who has an encounter with the Sistine Chapel comes out feeling extra peaceable, or with a Caravaggio, or with Jackson Pollock, or with one of many nice works of Anselm Kiefer. I feel artwork has the capability, like sturdy historical past, to be a disturber of the peace. One of many measures of nice artwork and nice historical past, I feel, is that it’s possible to present you insomnia, even when there is no such thing as a midnight solar round.”
German artist Anselm Kiefer was awarded The Queen Sonja Print Award Lifetime Achievement Award Photograph by Summer time Taylor
Thuggish masterpieces
Schama went on to say that nice artwork has “dreadful manners”. He added: “The hushed reverence of the gallery can idiot you into believing that masterpieces are well mannered issues, visions that soothe, allure and beguile, however truly, they’re thugs. Cruel and wily, the best works seize you in a headlock, tough up your composure, after which proceed in brief order to rearrange your sense of actuality.”
For many years, Schama has written about Kiefer’s work, which encompasses printing, portray and sculpture on a relentlessly massive scale. Rooted in his expertise rising up within the aftermath of Nazi Germany, Kiefer has constantly wrestled with the darkish underbelly of humanity in his work. As Schama places it, Kiefer is a “peerless grasp” on the connection between “nature, ache and reminiscence”. And it’s maybe via a confrontation with ache, tragedy and cruelty, Schama suggests, that an awesome murals would possibly presumably deliver you some sense of peace.
