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THE SCREAM

Hundreds gather to ‘scream’ in Munch tribute

Men and women from across Oslo gathered on Thurday at a specially constructed vantage point in the city's Ekeberg sculpture park to "release their emotions by screaming".

Hundreds gather to 'scream' in Munch tribute
The event, the first day of a collaborative art project by performance artist Marina Abramović, has been mounted to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. 
 
Abramović, who will be in Oslo for the full five days of screaming, said she had been inspired by the chance to use the same backdrop that Munch used in his painting The Scream. 
 
"I do not like sculptures in parks. They are best when they are pristine and untouched," she told Dagsavisen. "But when I was told this was the place where Munch was inspired to paint The Scream, I could not believe that no one had thought of doing this already."
 
Each of the 300 participants will be coached to get the most out of the emotional release. 
 
"Marina and a personal trainer will guide you to complete your screams. All you need is to do is to be present in the moment," an advertisement told potential volunteers. 
 
"Each scream will have a symbolic association with Munch's painting, but it is first and foremost your own experience and contact with yourself is important."
 
Abramović, a Serbian based in New-York, describes herself as "the grandmother of performance art".
 
The artist is perhaps most famous for 1970s Rhythm 0, in which she lay prone on a table and invited the audience to manipulate her body with 72 objects, which included a feather, a rose, a gun and a scalpel. 
 
Last week, she was in the headlines for getting pop star Lady Gaga to pose naked in a video to raise funds for her new Marina Abramovic Institute. 

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OSLO

Munch wrote ‘madman’ tag on ‘Scream’ painting, museum rules

A mysterious inscription on Edvard Munch's famed painting "The Scream" has baffled the art world for years, but Norwegian experts have now concluded it was written by none other than the artist himself.

Munch wrote 'madman' tag on 'Scream' painting, museum rules
File photo: AFP

Barely visible to the naked eye, the phrase “Can only have been painted by a madman” is written in pencil in Norwegian in the upper left corner of the iconic artwork.

The dark painting from 1893, now a symbol of existential angst, depicts a humanlike figure standing on a bridge, clutching its head in apparent horror against the backdrop of a swirling sky.

The author of the phrase has long been a mystery, with the main theory until now holding that it was a disgruntled viewer who penned it at the beginning of the 20th century on one of the four versions made by Munch.

But, using infrared technology to analyse the handwriting, experts at Norway’s National Museum have now concluded that it was the artist himself. 

“The writing is without a doubt Munch’s own,” museum curator Mai Britt Guleng said in a statement.

“The handwriting itself, as well as events that happened in 1895, when Munch showed the painting in Norway for the first time, all point in the same direction.”

The first showing of the work to the public in Oslo — then known as Kristiania — provoked furious criticism and raised questions about Munch’s mental state, which, according to Guleng, likely prompted Munch to write the inscription on the canvas shortly afterwards.

A pioneer of expressionism, Munch was haunted by the premature deaths of several family members, including his mother and his sister Johanne Sophie, due to illness. In 1908, he was temporarily committed to a psychiatric hospital.

This version of “The Scream” was stolen in 1994, the opening day of the Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer. It was recovered several months later.

The masterpiece will again go on display when the National Museum reopens in a new building in 2022.

READ ALSO: ‘The Scream’: newly-released Munch originals reveal different look

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