EXHIBIT: After scandal party with Bjarne Melgaard and superstar meeting with van Gogh’s Munch Museum’s “+ Munch” -series back into a more normal, museal rent.
Last Man Standing in exhibition railing, where Edvard Munch put into competition with other new and old male lions in the art, is Munch’s contemporaries colleague and competitor, sculptor Gustav Vigeland.
The link between these two is closest course. Not only did they simultaneously in the same city, and would soon become the two most prominent artists within each expression in Norway.
They also worked with many of the same themes, and for it with general knowledge of the two, is the public affairs no news: The life cycle and annexed eroticism and the pain love, illness, anxiety and death is recurring motifs in Munch and Vigeland.
Besides, they both put their eternal marks on capital, primarily Vigeland in Frogner Park, but Oslo is also virtually unique in the world that can boast a full two-man museums.
What is not quite as familiar, is the scope of these common points. The curator of the exhibition, Trine Otte Bak Nielsen has done extensive work to dig through archives and magazines, both at the Munch Museum and Vigeland Museum, and found letters and sketches showing new aspects of these two pillars of Norwegian art history, which also sheds new light on the relationship between the pair.
The exhibition has received an unofficial subtitle, “Behind the Myths”, which points to a critique of the notion that Munch and Vigeland was not only peers and healthy competitors for contracts and prestige, but also should have been bitter rivals and enemies.
One of the many anecdotes about the relationship between the two tells of an encounter on the streets of Oslo, where Munch lifting his hat and acidic greet Vigeland with a “good evening, Mr. Entrepreneur.”
It’s one of the myths that Nielsen wants to refute with research-based facts “Vigeland + Munch.” The exhibition emphasize naturally the interaction, and with it also the respect they obviously have had for each other’s work.
“Contractor” as a condescending term for Vigeland is that he obviously must have been better to push through ambitious plans, including in the public sphere than Munch – it is Vigeland a clear example.
Not to mention that Oslo municipality eventually asked both residential, atelier and material costs of the disposal of the sculptor, while the painter was subjected to tax on the assumed value of the paintings he had in stock, which shall be given Munch considerably economic headaches.
It seems the quite absurd in retrospect, considering the location they would get in world art history. The exhibition confirms status as such, when one goes myopic down at the work level.
Then there Munch playing ball, and Vigeland are running a little in between. Munch shows even in the simplest of sketches that little extra; the precise elegance of line, or the willingness to stretch any term and medium to the utmost.
Even when he tries out sculptor (Munch diminish sculptures but also drawings, shown here for the first time) where he obviously falls short of the craft, shows he is a reckless joy at seeing how far he may extend the term. Vigeland is in comparison a solid but fairly predictable specialist.
However, it is interesting to see how the equal footing in the large.
When it comes to wanting to explore the spirit of interest in symbolism, vitalism and consuming erotica, set not Vigeland back some. It is also interesting to study Munch’s, for me, unknown proposals for monumentalutsmykkinger and sculpture groups in urban space in Oslo. And there was the Vigeland king.
«Vigeland + Munch” adds naturally emphasis on drawings, prints and sketches, and smaller sculptural works.
The result is Not surprisingly, the visually most silent until now in “+ Munch” series, but in many ways also the most instructive about two much-described oeuvre.
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