– It is absolutely thrilling that every artist we have asked, no matter how fully booked and sought-after they are, have immediately accepted our offer to exhibit in Trøndelag this spring. Exposure in the context of Hannah Ryggen’s art is certainly an opportunity not to be missed. This is a testament to Ryggen’s importance globally right now, at a time where both political and textile works are heavily represented in the major art events, explains Solveig Lønmo, curator of the 2019 Hannah Ryggen Triennial.
The fact that young artists from abroad are familiar with the great Swedish-Norwegian textile artist Hannah Ryggen is in part due to the museum’s extensive loans of its collection of her work; the tapestries have been on display in major exhibitions all over the world in the last decade. The Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum owns the world’s largest collection of her art, and loan requests come in at an ever-increasing rate.
– There has been a conscious strategy on the museum’s part to promote Hannah Ryggen internationally. But we would also like for our local and national audience to experience her art in new and challenging ways, so for the Triennial we have arranged for the most interesting art from the international scene to come to Trøndelag, Hannah Ryggen’s home. When new artworks laden with social involvement enter a dialogue with Hannah Ryggen’s strong, outspoken messages from the 1930s through to 1970, it makes for a thematical structure that really touches a nerve with today’s massive challenges. This edition of the triennial will be thought-provoking, beautiful and raw, says Åshild Adsen, Director of the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum.
The Hannah Ryggen Triennial is a collaboration between the museum and Ørland/Bjugn Kunstforening. Concurrent with the exhibitions there will be a film programme, as well as a series of lectures. A keynote speaker will be Augustus Casely-Hayford, Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., who comes to Trondheim in August. The exhibition catalogue features, among other texts, an essay by author and anthropologist Erika Fatland, as well as the exhibition thoroughly documented in pictures.
And what can the audience expect to encounter in the exhibitions? A traditionally knit Oriental rug that seems to dissolve into a liquid running onto the floor; an embroidered map of the world showing national borders that have since been eradicated, strengthened, or moved; a depiction of what is regarded one of the world history’s most brutal assaults on indigenous people; the embroidered names of women who have been killed or are missing from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; pieces of landscapes that can never be experienced again; figures of frustration and oxblood. And all of this in the spirit of Hannah Ryggen – art that simultaneously shows and inspires attitudes towards the world and its peoples.
Read more about the Hannah Ryggen Triennial 2019 «New Land» here: https://nkim.no/en/hrt2019-new-land
For more information, please contact:
Director Åshild Adsen
Curator Solveig Lønmo