The Edvard Munch museum
The museum is only a block away from ja's apartment and there was no excuse not to check it out, he is an internationally renowned artist after all.
Edvard Munch, if you'll remember, is the artist of the scream. This painting has been elevated into the ranks of general pop culture but I never really liked it very much. Then again, I hated Dali until I saw his other paintings.
Dali is immortalized in popular culture for his paintings of melting clocks and spindly elephants but I always disliked these works. I'm interested in art and I actively collect and seek out obscure works but in Dali's case, his work is so characterized by these few paintings, it was many years before I happened upon a collection complete enough to include his earlier paintings. It was very suprising to find I liked his earlier stuff and my opinion of the artist has since reverse. I am bitter however that popular sentiment has decided that to appreciate Dali I had to like melting clocks.
I hoped Munch would be the same. His scream or his madonna didn't excite me but maybe his less popular stuff would be great.
The modern museum is situated in a carefully manicured lawn across from the botanical gardens. The entrance contains a cafe and gift shop and an airport security scanner manned by a typically rotund security guard. We were told it was ok to bring in cameras but we had to take our bags downstairs and store them in lockers.
Just past the security gates was a small hall filled with about 50 people sitting in plastic chairs watching a violinist and pianist playing classical music. While we gawked, she finished her piece and an opera singer stepped up.
There were instructions on the walls telling us to go downstairs and watch an introductory film before going into the museum proper.
The film, described in small white characters on a black screen as a 'playful music video based on the works of Edvard Munch' was the worst self-absorbed art-student piece I'd ever experienced. It was so bad I thought it might be a joke but the punchline never came and I had to conclude it was put together by the curator's daughter.
While suffering through this pretentious art film, I began to wonder if it was all propaganda. The security at the entrance, the live chamber music, and this sycophantic music video suggested someone desperately wanted me to believe this Munch guy was great and the paintings I would soon be viewing, were really special. Did Munch's work really merit this demagogy?
Munch is an impressionist - an art technique that is very appealing to amateur artists with little or no skill. The sloppy application of color and flat perspective can look easy to produce but there is a difference between a random mess of color and the abstract paintings Monet, Pissaro, or Pollock. If you want to be an artist but have no eye for color, understanding of composition, or patience to detail your subject, it's very easy to convince yourself and, to a lesser extent, others that what you've created is significant.
Just look at Thomas Kinkade.
I was ready to walk out if the second film was another self-absorbed music video but it was an hour long documentary on the life of the artist (with live actors acting out events of his life). Edvard had a pretty horrible life and many of his paintings were just depictions of his bad experiences. He grew so isolated in his later years, when they came to collect his body they discovered his front gate had rusted shut.
The art was ok.
There was a crowd of people standing in front of the copy of the scream - I wondered if they really liked it or if they had been seduced by the classical music and the art videos. Other paintings seemed a bit lazy and it bothered me he rarely finished painting his subjects hands. There were a few figures and scenes that were offbeat and interesting but nothing really excited me.
While finding links on Edvard Munch I found a picture of the thieves who stole the painting of the scream in 2004. Their getaway car looks suspiciously like ja's (>_>)
