Art in Oslo: Old, New, Borrowed and Blue – Creating a New Identity for the City and its People

- Presentation speakers
  - Ekaterina Bagreeva, Russian Economic University of G. V. Plekhanov
Abstract:

The Norwegian capital, once called the most boring city in the world, has lately been described with a variety of superlatives. The 1000-year old Oslo, home of Vikings, a forgotten Danish province and later a remote appendix to the Swedish throne, was resurrected as the «God’s field» in 1905 when it became the capital of the newly independent Norway. The fragile identity of the city was revised in the 1960s when this northern rim of Europe, hardly associated with anything but snow and fjords, skyrocketed as one of the wealthiest cities in the world as vast oil reserves were discovered in the North Sea. The presentation introduces the work of the great Norwegian patron of the arts, Christian Rignes. He undertook the task of making citizens proud of their heritage, extracting the essence of the Norwegian soul and identity, as well as bringing the genius of artists like Dali, Rodin and Buseyne to the Norwegian woods. His Ekeberg Park in the East with sculptures underlining feminime qualities, balance the dominance of masculinity of the Vigeland Park in the Oslo West-End.