Students’ art subject to legal review

Two masters’ students, Magdalena Nordin and Oscar Guermouche, may not be able to put their artwork on display in spring exhibition following the lawyers’ review, according to the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper.

Guermouche’s work, entitled “Vi vill åka till Moskva” (‘We want to go to Moscow’) includes Swedish flags with text written on them about invading and killing Russians taken from old Swedish military marching songs.

According to Swedish law, only the King is allowed to add text to the Swedish flag.

Nordin, meanwhile, has used music from television computer games in her work, which may be a breach of copyright law.

The legal review of artworks by Konstfack students comes following a number of controversial incidents earlier in the year.

In one case in January, Anna Odell, a 35-year-old student faked a suicide attempt and psychotic breakdown in order to gain admission to the psychiatric ward at a Stockholm hospital.

The incident, which was part of a larger art project by Odell, sparked widespread outrage when it was discovered that officials at the art college had approved the stunt.

Another case involved a work featuring a video in which a Stockholm subway car was vandalized, prompting anger on the part of Sweden’s Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth.

“I do not think that vandalism is art,” she said in February after viewing the work.

Erik Hellsten, chair of the school’s student union, said the legal review of students’ artwork ahead of exhibition “borders on censorship”.