Nordic Noir: Works on Paper from Edvard Munch to Mamma Andersson

 

Mamma Andersson - The Fallow Deer, 2016

I came across this interesting exhibition by chance, it was like a surprise bonus after having visited the Samurai exhibition at the British Museum. It's up on the fourth floor in Room 90, Prints and drawings. The exhibition is the culmination of a five-year project supported by AKO Foundation to acquire graphic works on paper from the Nordic region. And as such it is a survey of original Scandinavian drawings and printmaking spanning the repertoire of techniques from original woodcuts to monoprints, etchings and screen-prints, with art styles ranging from figurative to abstraction to Pop Art. The exhibition title is somewhat misleading, taking its cue from the dark Scandinavian murder-mystery dramas of the noughties, hinting at something very dark and macabre about the works exhibited. There is very little to none of this darkness here though, save for the severed horse's head depicted in Sverre Malling's disturbing but very haunting, beautifully rendered large drawing of a man lovingly holding said horse's head, and the intense psycho drama of a large print of her mother by Vanessa Baird, and of course a dark, brooding figure of a man captured by Edvard Munch. Munch and contemporary artist Olafur Eliasson are perhaps the biggest names here, and it would have been easy for the curators to focus on the former given the significant examples of Munch's work they hold in their extensive print collection, but they generously give exhibition space to showcase the varied works of lesser known Scandinavian artists, giving these artists a deserved audience in the UK. The printed subject matter depicts everything from scenes specific to Nordic life such as mythology, fishing, lumberjacking, flora and fauna (many fir trees and reindeer), cityscapes, landscapes, as well as works with a distinctly feminist edge. There is a rather lovely large watercolour drawing by Olafur Eliasson created from the melted ice of a glacier to highlight the effects of climate change which closes the exhibition. As a sometime printmaker I found this to be a really interesting survey of the print medium and one which will be of interest to all artists and printmakers.

Nordic Noir: Works on Paper from Edvard Munch to Mamma Andersson
until 22nd March

Room 90

British Museum

Great Russell Street

London

WC1B