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Norway artists’ naked flash-mob stunt backfires

A Norwegian artist who called on his local village to stand naked on a beach to greet Norwegian TV's touring 'Summer Boat' failed to draw a single other participant.

Published: 4 August 2015 23:48 CEST

Norway artists’ naked flash-mob stunt backfires

Olaf Karlsen advertising his art work. Photo: Olaf Carlsen

Olaf Karlsen put out an announcement in the local Lister24 newspaper calling on the people of Kviljoodden to join him on the beach for the passing of the Sommerbåten, or Summer Boat, which state broadcaster NRK has hired to travel around the coast of Norway this summer.

He named the naked group performance Strandfolket, or The Beach People. But in the end, he stood on the beach alone.

“I was pissed off. I called everyone a coward on Saturday. I feel a bit dejected,” he told local Lister24 newspaper. “When things like this happen you don’t feel like thinking creatively or doing anything special at all. Even though I am angry and disappointed, I am through feeling depressed. I will continue, new ideas will come.”

Karlsen has compared his art to that of the contemporary American photographer Spencer Tunick, who is well-known for convincing large groups, sometimes comprising thousands of people, to pose naked in different locations around the world.

“The American artist Spencer Tunick travels the world with stunts like this,” Karlsen said. “He gets thousands of people to lie down naked, and they do it almost on top of each other. They are there for him in big cities. I wonder if he could get people to line up here.”

Karlsen is not the only Norwegian artist to fail at a naked art stunt recently. A video featuring contemporary artist Hilde Krohn Huse, who was left hanging in a tree after an installation went awry went viral last month, bringing her fleeting international fame.

African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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