Norway owes its position in international art history to Edvard Munch, one of the pioneers of modern art. But like most pioneers, Edvard Munch (1863-1944) remained isolated in his own milieu. His contribution had no immediate impact on modern Norwegian art, nor did it attract international attention to Norwegian artists.

This does not imply that there was little activity or no particularly interesting artists. Perhaps the fault was lack of self confidence and ambition, both among the artists themselves and among their spokesmen and promoters? Norwegian pictorial art appeared to have secured itself a modest niche as a regional phenomenon in the northern corner of Europe.

Today, however, as the twentieth century draws to a close, the situation has changed completely. This is demonstrated by a noticeable interest in Norwegian contemporary art in international fora, and within Norway itself it is apparent in an equally noticeable optimism and a high level of activity among artists, museum staff, promoters and collectors. This energy is clearly connected with a high level of ambition and quality in the work of Norwegian artists today.

The most obvious explanation is that this is due to the emergence of a particularly large number of good artists - perhaps very good artists. But this alone is not sufficient to explain the present enthusiasm. We must seek our answer in a conjunction of circumstances which together form an overall picture of current Norwegian art.

A PLACE IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

After World War II, Norwegian art entered into a steadily more comprehensive alliance with the social-democratic programme of social planning. Ideally, art should play a part in public information and be an invitation to an activity which everyone has the right to enjoy. For many years this view was largely expressed in after-dinner speeches and reports on cultural policy. But the principle had been established. It was beyond dispute, and in this way the foundations were laid for a more consistent official policy towards art as soon as the opportunity arose. And the opportunity came in the 1970s, with their buoyant economy and optimistic view of the future.

Artists formed active, professional organizations. The media devoted many columns to their demands to be taken seriously as professionals with an important social mission. They strengthened their position in evaluating bodies, played an active part in spreading and establishing artistic activity throughout the country and won acceptance for the principle of remuneration for the public display of their works. The result was two-sided - if not more. Norwegian cultural activity became decentralized. Artistic talent was discovered outside the urban concentrations in the capital - not least in local centres such as Bergen and Trondheim. At the same time, Norwegian society became aware that the country as a whole possessed an extrovert and professional pictorial art in keeping with growing national self-esteem.

By bringing pictorial art into the public sphere, Norway ran the risk of turning it into smug, conservative, socially-realistic "official" art. Fortunately, there was a precluding factor involved. The original argument for treating art as an important social element was linked to the conception of art as a free participant in public debate. Its role was to act as a safety valve, an inner voice of conscience, an "enfant terrible". In the 70s, the view was that the most valuable art was experimental, avant-garde, and that this was precisely the form of art that public money should fund.

Thus, from an idealistic point of view, Norwegian art was virtually destined to be inventive and to flourish throughout the 70s. But in retrospect, there are many today who wonder whether this public consensus on the objectives of art provided only a spurious freedom and was in fact restrictive in the long term.

NATIONAL - INTERNATIONAL

With an artist of the calibre of Edvard Munch as part of its heritage, Norwegian art might be expected to have a dominating expressionistic tradition. The fact that this is not so is one of the surprises that abound in the history of art. For although several of Norway's most important artists have been distinctly expressionist, these have always functioned as outsiders, as isolated single phenomena, not representing any main stream.

But finally, towards the end of the 70s, a strongly expressive trend developed in Norway too. I use the word "too" because this took place parallel to international movements in art, such as "New Expressionism", "Heftige Malerei", "Bad Painting" and "Neue Wilden". In international art the expression of strong emotion and individual self-expression was in vogue, perhaps as a reaction to the restraint of the technological and conceptual art of the previous decade.

In Norway this new, artistic individuality went hand-in-hand with an increasing awareness of the traditional qualities of technique and materials. In painting this meant that the aesthetic effects in the brush strokes and in the refined play of colours again became a focus of interest among the young. Among graphic artists, old and well-tried techniques, such as aquatint, mezzotint and xylography were given new life while at the same time graphics of monumental proportions were being produced, along with unique works such as monotypes and hand- tinted prints. Distinctive, individually produced graphics replaced the serialized (mass produced) products. Among young sculptors the trend was towards casting in bronze and carving in stone, following a period in which the main emphasis was on diversity of materials and often on semi- finished products.

At the same time, young Norwegian artists were showing more interest in the history of art and a growing sympathy for artistic forms of expression which the older generation had rejected with a shrug. Cubism, surrealism and expressionism were the current art forms, enjoying a popularity they had never known before, not even in the interwar years, when internationally they were the leading art trends. Norwegian art seemed firmly resolved to fill in the gaps in its own recent history. At the same time there was an equally firm resolve to return to basics and break with the future-fixated belief in development that was dominant in the post-war years. To some degree Norway also took part in the reassessment of views on art and historical perspective which was so widespread in other countries in this post-modernistic period.

But Norway never made the total break with tradition that international modernism had led to elsewhere. Large sectors of our art have always been devoted to pictorial quality, sculptural modelling and graphic effects, with no apparent concern for problems in the relationship between art and reality. Back came the traditional trends such as landscape painting, psychological, figurative sculpture and graphics based on handicraft techniques. They appeared as the continuation of the established course among older artists and as exciting discoveries among the very young and those who deliberately looked to the world outside Norway. Continuity became an important factor and in fact began to be identified with our special regional characteristics as an art nation. We kept up with international trends, but could also cultivate the national identity so essential to us.

The new, expressive, individualistic tendencies, the awakening interest in older phenomena such as cubism, surrealism and expressionism, and the firmly maintained traditions in techniques and the use of materials all fused together in a variety of surprising combinations in the Norwegian art of the 80s. But in this complex picture a number of distictive trends gradually emerged, trends which will no doubt leave their mark on Norwegian art for many years to come.

SINCERITY

Many contemporary artists paint pictures which are intended to appeal both through their pictorial beauty and their disturbing content. Fragments of dreams and reminiscences - not infrequently nightmares - are fused together in these paintings. The aesthetic qualities give an unexpected impression of unity among contents which appear to be totally irrational.

In this context the classical exponent is Bjørn Carlsen (b.1945). He uses very beautiful colours in his paintings, but they portray disquieting visions in which birth and death, violence and tenderness all melt together into a whole. A sort of sublime, harmonious universe revolves around mankind, which is portrayed without illusions, but also without disgust.

Another leading exponent of this disturbing use of the fantastic is Knut Rose (b.1936). His pictures too have an alluring beauty, but the rich, glazed layers of colour reveal threatening glimpses of a hazy dream world, where man appears lost in aimless games, with no meaning and no goal.

The uncompromising but secretive aspect in these portrayals of life has been employed in a number of ways by other artists who move through similar psychological minefields. Others go even further in cultivating a demonstratively personal means of expression. Their paintings serve as a stage for temperamental outbursts, where formal discipline appears to be totally subordinate. The effect of these pictures is not based on aesthetic seduction, but on spontaneity and disarray.

At this point we overlap another feature in much of Norwegian contemporary art: naivism. The pictures are quite often drawn rather clumsily, with no apparent formally organized composition and little thought for the artistic display of colours. They remind one of children's art, therapeutic art, or folk art. Here, of course, we are dealing primarily with stylized features in this highly professional form of art. In other words, these are purely the means of indicating that this is genuine, highly personal art, drawn from the artist's reservoir of emotions and subconscious experiences.

Within a group like this there is a wide diversity of artists. Perhaps the best examples of the genre are the robust pictures of Tore Hansen (b.1949), who uses extremely simple drawings to convey his feeling for landscapes and rustic environments. On closer inspection they are seen to contain a humorous subtlety in the use of pictorial conventions and a very deliberate calculation in colour and drawing.

Thus, the naivety and roughness are above all symbols of the artist's desire to express sincerity. This emphasis on the sincere is an important component of Norwegian art and its effect is all the stronger in a period where the prevailing mood in international art circles encourages blase and detached irony. The self-commenting plays a minor role in Nowegian art and in their own way Norwegian artists adhere to the traditional romantic picture of artists in which the artist - without reservation - is expected to express poignant, inexplicable experiences.

There are of course exceptions to generalizations of this sort. An artist of the importance of Bjørn Ransve (b.1944), creates to all appearances unusually sophisticated paintings in constantly changing styles, which are all part of the debate on the relationship between art and reality. All the same, the expressive, the untidy and the naive can still be called dominating stylistic traits in contemporary Norwegian art, but such traits are not really distinguishable from the subject matter. Here we are back again at the above-mentioned strong and inexplicable experiences. These are precisely what most of modern art is about. Occasionally, one may discern a simple symbolism in the pictures, but usually their content is more diffuse, or ambiguous, in remarkable contrast to the apparently unrestrained expression. The work of art cannot and should not be totally understandable. When such works nevertheless do transcend the contrived pictorial enigma, it is due not least to their above-mentioned aura of sincerity, of genuine personal statement.

This can apply to artistic expressions as different as Leonard Rickhard's (b.1945) pictures of vaguely menaced idylls, and Snorre Kyllingmark's (b.1948) paintings which balance somewhere between the imaginative motif and the totally non-figurative composition, and Håvard Vikhagen's (b.1952) impasted and evocative landscapes and interiors.

MATERIAL AND FORM

With the interest in the recent past in art history, Norwegian artists have again taken up non-figurative modernism. The result is neo- formalism, where the content plays no decisive role. But even here, where the work of art is concentrated on the purely aesthetic, one seldom sees this taken to great subtle or sophisticated lengths.

The most important exponent of such a trend is, in a way, a deviation. Arne Malmedal (b.1937), in fact projects an understated view of the picture, based on great pictorial experience and wide knowledge. But he too refrains from maintaining an intellectualizing distance.

The majority of artists are concerned with the elementary phenomena of composition, not least among the younger sculptors. It is as though the reduced emphasis on form makes it possible to concentrate on just a few aspects of the work, such as the characteristics of the material. This interest in the material leaves us in no doubt that we are dealing with Norwegian art of the late 20th century.

No one has gone as far in allowing the surface of the picture to dominate its expression as Bjørn Sigurd Tufta (b.1956). His dark, textured pictures are, in their strict abstraction, a kind of emblem. But at the same time they are evocative portrayals of Norwegian mountains and fjords filled with a symbolic content which can be linked to Bocklin's "Toteninsel."

This feeling for the material is also evident in graphics and drawings, in the giant-size woodcuts, etchings and pen and charcoal drawings now being produced. A simplified form language makes the most of the special characteristics of the different techniques.

This freedom consists of the ability to exploit and further develop these techniques, combine them and in fact mix them together with all other imaginable techniques and media. Today, alongside pure virtuoso graphics, we find all kinds of transitional forms between graphics and drawing, painting, sculpture and installations. An artist such as Yngve Zakarias (b.1957) has made prints which are material pictures, and diary leaves which have almost the same form as wall grafitti.

The fact that drawing is also part of this dynamic field is something totally surprising in Norwegian art. Previously, drawing was hardly considered an independent form of artistic expression, but now there are many artists who make drawing their main medium. A pioneer in this field is Zdenka Rusova (b.1939) who, in her large compositions, gives us the feeling of dramatic growth processes.

TRANSITIONS AND MIXTURES

Transitional forms are in fact a dominating trend in contemporary Norwegian art. This is partly a consequence of the programmatic experimenting of the 70s. But it also has a natural connection with the same programmatic pluralism of the 80s: everything is possible in principle and there is no rule or convention that cannot be broken. Here too we see the impact of self-confidence and optimism with regard to the potential of art which runs like a leitmotif through our art today.

In particular, we find all kinds of materials and forms of expresson mixed up in what, for the sake of simplicity, we can term sculpture, since it has to do with three-dimensional objects. In reality it is spatial art we are talking about. The entire space is utilized. The exhibition is itself the work of art and every conceivable mixture of such articles as everyday utensils, natural objects and pictorial art can form a part of the whole. This often goes under the rather diffuse title of "installations". An important influence is the international conceptual art, "Arte Povera", "Land Art" and other phenomena of the 60s and 70s. But in the Norwegian versions, as often as not, little remains of the conceptual and analytical. Here, it is mostly a directed experience in space, a kind of theatre without action. Norwegian installations are typical of our contemporary art in their trend towards the ritual and in their cultivation of the material's own expression. It should be noted that this pronounced physical aspect can be fused into one intense expression, as in the work of Per Inge Bjørlo (b.1952), where the objects and the materials, their characteristics and associations interact - all within a heavily charged psychic space.

Installations dominated in the 80s, but we have also seen a pronounced development in what, in everyday language, we would call sculpture. When Norwegian sculpture finally moved away from classical formalism at the end of the 70s, it was hardly surprising that the expression of the material, in particular, became the most important goal. As time went by, there were so many manifestations of interest in natural materials such as wood, stone, iron, leather - and an associated revival of old handicraft techniques - that one could almost talk of a cultural- anthropological trend in Norwegian sculpture. It could even go hand in hand with the ritual or more general magical tendencies.

The most prominent Norwegian sculptor today is Bård Breivik (b.1948). Breivik has moved from research into man's use of and relation to his tools, to a demonstration of the dialogue between nature and mankind's treatment of nature.

BORDERLAND ACTIVITY

Since I repeatedly return to words such as "material" and "handicraft", it would perhaps be natural to introduce another sector which is expanding enormously; applied art or handicrafts. But if anything, it is the craftsmen who have moved closer towards so-called free art. In the 70s Norwegian textile art was finally recognized as a form of pictorial art. In recent years this art form has moved out of its confines and now employs free combinations of every conceivable type of material. Much of today's textile art can reasonably be called fibre art, except where it is part of installations and assemblies. It is thought-provoking that at the same time we have experienced a renaissance of the traditional gobelin techniques, which are used in compositions with a play on nuances to create an area of flowing colours.

Also among artists working with wood, metals or ceramics there are many today who can scarcely be called furniture makers, goldsmiths or potters any more. Their work moves a long way over into pictorial art and this borderland activity will undoubtedly have a stimulating effect on both handicrafts and pictorial art in Norway.

While the boundaries between the traditional media and professions have almost been eradicated, the uttermost limits of pictorial art are becoming more and more difficult to define. Some Norwegian artists work with performance or forms which might just as well be called theatre. Video is now an exciting form of expression, and into what category can it be put? There are architects who design completely free, utopian projects and who exhibit their sketches in art galleries. Composers, musicians, dancers, actors and painters work together on projects which strictly speaking do not belong to any of their respective disciplines

All this is part of the avant-garde milieu in Norwegian culture - a milieu which often receives extra attention in a small country. The reigning conservatism makes it easy to shock. But it is not only new, advanced ideas and trends which are in evidence. Strangely enough, an important new addition to our younger artistic circles is an art form which has been in existence for generations, without being seriously considered as an artistic form of expression. Photography had for some time to face the fact that in the midst of all this avant-gardism, this delight in experiment joy of innovation, the Norwegian art world had been slow to acknowledge it and was reluctant to accept a a definite break with the established field of art. But in the end it was inevitable and today photography is an indispensable part of our vital art field.

It is this very vitality that first and foremost characterizes Norwegian art today. This exists in a dialogue with the conservatism which will always be present in a small environment. We have our roots, and we take great care to preserve them as we proceed along the way. But we are stretching out eagerly from these roots, in many parallel and sometimes opposing directions. This reaching out is positive in itself. Norwegian art today demonstrates a firm belief in the future of art as a whole.