Hannah Ryggen Triennial 2016

September 22 - November 20, 2016

The second edition of the Hannah Ryggen Triennial has appointed Erzen Shkololli as curator. The Hannah Ryggen Triennale will take place in Ørland, and in Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum. We are still a bit secretive, but artists names will soon be revealed....

Erzen Shkololli is an artist and curator. He is director of the foundation “Unë e du Kosovën” in Prishtina, Kosovo. He is also curatorial advisor to dOCUMENTA 14. From 2011 until 2015 he was director of the National Gallery of Kosovo, and in 2013 Shkololli was commissioner of the first representation of the Republic of Kosovo at the 55th edition of the Venice Biennale. From 2003 to 2007 he held the position of artistic director at the Contemporary Art Institute EXIT in Peja, an exchange initiative in Kosovo, involved with transforming the local cultural landscape.His artistic practice utilises local rituals and folklore in order to draw attention to specific socio-political situations; his work has been exhibited internationally in museums including the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Fridericianum, Kassel.Shkololli arranged the Kontakt Art Collection exhibition titled Thirty One curated by Hans Urlich Obrist and Petrit Halilaj at the National Gallery of Kosovo (2015). He curated Thirty Years After: Šejla Kamerić (2015), Sokol Beqiri: Retrospective (2014), Simon Shiroka: Retrospective at the National Gallery in Tirana (2014) and at the National Gallery of Kosovo (2013) and co-curated Engjell Berisha – Before: Retrospecive (2013) and Graphics from the collection of NGK (2013).In 2008 he was a recipient of the DAAD Artist in Residency Fellowship, Berlin. Since 2003 he has been a member of the European Cultural Parliament. He lives and works in Prishtina.

Hannah Ryggen (1894–1970) was a Swedish-born Norwegian textile artist. Self-trained, she worked on a standing loom constructed by her husband, the painter Hans Ryggen. She moved to Norway in 1924. She was a pacifist who subscribed to Scandinavian feminist and leftist journals, and was active in the Norwegian Communist Party and international workers’ movements. She paid close attention to the rise of fascism in Europe, and made work in direct response to it. Her 1935 tapestry Etiopia (Ethiopia) was triggered by Benito Mussolini‘s invasion of the African country. It was shown at the Paris World’s Fair in 1937, next to Picasso’s Guernica. In 1936 she wove one tapestry called Hitlerteppet (The Hitler Carpet), with two decapitated figures kneeling before a hovering cross, and one called Drømmedød (Death of Dreams) depicting prisoners and murderous Nazis in a concentration camp. Ryggen created about 100 large carpets in her lifetime and Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum owns the largest collection of her tapestries.

The Triennial will present a diverse program of artist talks, lectures, and workshop during its 8-week period. More info coming soon.

Media contact: Museum Director Åshild Adsen, aashild.adsen@nkim.museum.no / T + 47 97626424