Remembering MoMa and Nasjonalmuseet 
Calvin Tomkins wrote a piece on MoMa for the New Yorker Sept. 25 (small detour; this is the best I-hate-blog I have found. someone is intensely hating this magazine, but still uses a lot, a lot of thinking about and reading it ). Tomkins is almost 80, something you do notice in the article (somehow I miss marc spiegler's touch on a subject like this, but I guess it is not of his interest), takes us on a tour trying to, like the old man he is, finding piece with the new MoMa instead of remembering the past when everything was so much better.

This is the type of piece me myself would like to write about the National Museum in Norway and it's founding director Sune Nordgren. The newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (Financial Times of Norway) produced a major piece of journalism when the showed in a long feature how a small group of men did an intensive effort to discover and expose how Norgren in his role a director squeezing the National Gallery, The Contemporary Art, The Architecture and the National Museum of decorative art and design under one administration, banned part of his staff - did a bad job at Baltic etc. The feature expose who these men are, how they fed a few major norwegian art critics with material. This material was again used by the critics without exposing it's source.

The feature shows that in every witch hunt, this one as well used slight, doubtful and useless evidence. The mafia standing behind this tried to feed journalists and editors with the same material, but it never stood ground when they dug deeper into it.
This case is a very complex case, and even though the article was explosive when it was published, it show many a great gap in the structure and history.

BAck to MoMa, Tomkins have spent almost half a century at MoMA and has a memoryt about it before most of today's artists and curator even could spell 'art'. He talks about the new museum, takes into consideration some rumours and lies that have been said about MoMA, about the curatorial staff, its director etc. and then talks to all involved. This is what I would like to do about the National Museum in Norway: talk to those involved. No one ever talked to the curators at the museum, they never ever entered the debate. neither did other museums directors. IT is all so quiet.

So why is this something?
Norgren resigned - something I do not think would have happened it a bigger country.




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some small things. the gallery of the year 
Italy got a new gallery; Citric Gallery in Brescia (where is that?)`
Not that I understand Italian, but here is what the invitation card state:
ha il piacere di invitarvi
all'inugurazione della galleria
sabato 23 settembre 2006
ore 18.00

when your happy, clap your hands.

got a really nice package from Jan Christensen the other day with a lot of stuff in it (a bit like christmas), dvds, cracs, art stuff and a copy of a magazine page with a red circle marking som text:
It sucks to abandon your kids and it makes them feel really bd about themselves for their whole lives and they tend to have relationship problems, but as far as aesthetic goes, it's kind of a good look. It's way more FTW than punk or metal, because it's like "You guys can give all the fingers you want. I AM fucking the world"

I guess me and him got something in common there.

further, about Mr. Christensen, the inevitable is happening. Me and him would meet again, I knew it. Around 2000 we where mailing back and forth making up stories and ideas about how to open a art gallery in Oslo.; when Jan decided to do his own art instead (got him far I guess, much further than me and my do-not-know-what-I-am-doing-with-my-life; attitude), I bailed as well. It was never that serious, but we had ideas. it would have blasted the art scene in Oslo (and then we would have gone bankrupt after 11 September 2001 for sure). Now, I am doing my own
art space here in Leipzig and our first larger exhibition will be "I Will Never Make IT!" based on Jan's first big wall piece, conceptualized in 2000 and realized first in 2003, winning an award - like Jan does the best.

Anyway. Jan will start a gallery it looks like. Funny name, reminds me of something ; like my own name.
Leif Magne Tangens

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Momeuntum 06 
One of the longest living spin off*s from the so-called Nordic miracle, the biennial Momentum, Moss - Norway will this year be seen for the fourth time since 1998.

Back then it was Swede, present Direcor of Städelschule in Frankfurt, Daniel Birnbaum, Independent Dane Lars Bang Larsen and Norse gallerist Atle Gerhardsen that speculated in calling it "Momentum - top of the pop". Luckily they decided not to. But it was a biennial with almost every high-flying Scandinavian artist included (Elmgreen & Dragset, Olafur Eliasson, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Vibeke Tandberg, A.K. Dolven etc.). The second one, in 2000, tried to follow the same recipe - but could not bring out the same amount of high-flying curators and artists. The third, in 2004, promised to take the Nordic term beyond the geographical boarders, but failed.

The two curators of this years biennial Annette Kierulf and Mark Sladen have chosen a not so Scandinavian list of artists:

Endre Aalrust & Thomas Kilpper (NO & DE)
Lara Almarcegui (ES/NL)
Johanna Billing (SE)
Gerard Byrne (IR)
Phil Collins (UK)
Copenhagen Free University (DK)
Kajsa Dahlberg (SE)
Edvard Gran (NO)
Tue Greenfort (DK)
Jeppe Hein (DK)
Knut Henrik Henriksen (N)
Sergej Jensen (DK)
Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen (FI)
Ragnar Kjartansson (IS)
Joachim Koester (DK)
Juozas Laivys (LT)
Camilla Løw (NO)
Talleiv Taro Manum (NO)
Michaela Meise (DE)
Rosalind Nashashibi (UK)
Romantic Geographic Society (FI/DE)
Egill Sæbjörnsson (IS)
Michael Sailstorfer (DE)
Lucy Skaer (UK)
Joanne Tatham & Tom O'Sullivan (UK)
Mark Titchner (UK)
Sue Tompkins (UK)
Lars Vilks (SE)





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exit basel... 
and enter Kunsthaus Baselland. They are showing Jan Christensen's exhibition Forward Momentum and I should have been there. The biggest solo show of Jan up to date.

Jan also got a homepage:


www.janchristensen.org

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The Munch Robberies 
Three out of total six was acquitted. I haven't followed the trial that close - but at he beginning the police and the prosecutors was 100% that all six were going to be sentenced.
The so-called master mind, Bjørn Hoen, was sentenced to seven years, altough he claimed being playing chess against Norwegian chess wonder Magnus Carlsen one of the days before the bold daylight robbery.
I just found this sort of funny because just one and a half month ago the end of the NOKAS (Norwegian Cash Service) trial Mastermind and according to the tabloid papers in Norway a devoted chess player at early age, David Toska was Sentenced to 19 years of prison.
I cannot remember how, but there are a link between the men involved both robberies.



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