Description
Book SynopsisThe Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries Since 1975 is the final volume of the four-volume series of cultural histories of the avant-garde movements in the Nordic countries. This volume carries the avant-garde discussion forward to present-day avant-gardes, challenged by the globalisation of the entertainment industries and new interactive media such as the internet. The avant-garde can now be considered a tradition that has been made more widely available through the opening of archives, electronic documentation and new research, which has spurred both re-enactments, revisions and continuations of historical avant-garde practices, while new cultural contexts, political, technological and ecological conditions have called for new strategies.
Trade Review“A tour-de-force through 20th-century Nordic avant-garde and cultural history." [...] "[This] is a very focused volume, which, with the introduction and introductions to each individual section, educationally takes the reader by the hand through the various avant-garde activities documented. Add to this the fact that each individual article is well written, highly interesting and thought-provoking, and that each should lead to further study at various university levels (many deserving of their own PhD theses). [...] The editorial tour-de-force through 20th-century Nordic cultural history has also provided new perspectives on the second neo-avant-garde wave that cancels the dichotomy between center and periphery; instead it is shown that [...] the Nordic countries show power to constitute such centers in international cultural history.” -Per Bäckström, Edda, Volume 110, Issue 1, pp 62–66, 6 March 2023. “En tour-de-force genom 1900-talets nordiska avantgarde- och kulturhistoria." [...] "[Detta] är en mycket fokuserad volym, som med introduktionen och inledningar till varje enskild sektion, på ett pedagogiskt vis för läsaren vid handen genom de olika avantgardeaktiviteter som dokumenteras. Lägger man till detta att varje enskild artikel är välskriven, högst intressant och tankeväckande, och att var och en borde leda till vidare studier på olika universitetsnivåer (mycket förtjänar egna doktorsavhandlingar). [...] Redaktionens tour-de-force genom 1900-talets nordiska kulturhistoria har dessutom gett nya perspektiv på den andra neoavantgardevåg som upphäver dikotomin mellan centrum och periferi; istället visas att [...] de nordiska länderna uppvisar kraft att utgöra sådana centrum i den internationella kulturhistorien.” -Per Bäckström, Edda, Volume 110, Issue 1, pp 62–66, 6 March 2023.
Table of ContentsPreface Contributors The Long Avant-Garde Tradition – Restaging, Resisting, Renewing Tania Ørum and Laura Luise Schultz Section 1: Paradigmatic Cases Introduction to Section 1 Benedikt Hjartarson Appropriating the Past to Examine the Present – On Matias Faldbakken as Media Artist Anders Skare Malvik Magma and Persona – Material Generativity in the Work of Björk Guðmundsdóttir Holger Schulze DOGMA 95 and The Idiots – A Renewal of Avant-Garde Realism in Film Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen Feminist Avant-Garde Film of the 1970s as Gender Politics – The Example of Tornerose, by Jytte Rex and Kirsten Justesen Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam Such Stuff as We Are Made of – Kirsten Dehlholm, Billedstofteater and Hotel Pro Forma Laura Luise Schultz “An American Poet Only Writing in Finnish” – Leevi Lehto’s Seminal Role in Contemporary Finnish Poetry Anna Helle and Martin Glaz Serup Section 2: The Promises of Technology Introduction to Section 2 Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam The Avant-Garde and the Computer Industry – Art and Technology Collaborations at Datasaab and IBM Sweden from the late 1960s to the 1990s Anna Orrghen Miracle Machines – The Creative and Democratic Promise of the Photocopier: Danish Xerography 1979–1995 in an Avant-Garde Perspective Lise Skytte Jakobsen Avant-Garde Anomalies and Transnational Trajectories – The Place and Time of Gunvor Nelson’s Collage Films of the 1980s John Sundholm Art for Aliens – On Goodiepal’s Xenophile Posthumanism Jacob Wamberg Erkki Kurenniemi – Life Is an Algorithm Lars Bang Larsen Life in a Code – Mikael Brygger’s “NASDAQ 30.5.2010” as Found Poetry Miikka Laihinen Section 3: The Performative Turn Introduction to Section 3 Laura Luise Schultz She Splits Phallic Cucumbers with a Knife – The Norwegian Vienna Activist that Art History Forgot Susanne Christensen “Don’t Panic. Black, No Sugar is a New Way of Life!” – An Icelandic Street Theatre between Carnival and Disturbance Magnús Þór Þorbergsson Two Different Perspectives on the Avant-Garde in Finnish Dance in the 1980s – Reijo Kela and Sanna Kekäläinen Aino Kukkonen Hilarious Imperialists – Baktruppen’s Bad Family Photos from the World Tour Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt Jessie Kleemann between Orsoq and Turpentine David Winfield Norman Humour as an Avant-Garde Strategy in Three Generations of Feminist Art: Kirsten Justesen, Hanne Nielsen & Birgit Johnsen and Maja Malou Lyse Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam Precarious Fiction and Precarious Spectatorship – The Artistic Practice of SIGNA as Theatrical Avant-Garde Thomas Rosendal Nielsen Section 4: Intervention and Institutional Critique Introduction to Section 4 Laura Luise Schultz The Skinnebach Effect – Towards a Poetic Institutional Critique Mathies G. Aarhus The Stunt Poets – A Literary Avant-Garde in the Neo-Liberal Age of Mass Media Wenche Larsen We Are a Song the Band Doesn’t Play – Systematic Systemic Critique in Contemporary Swedish Poetry Elisabeth Friis The Sámi Museum in Karasjok – A Story of Resistance Hanna Horsberg Hansen S.L.Á.T.U.R. – The Obtrusive Composers’ Collective Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir The Guerrilla Paradigm or “Feminist-Avant-Garde” – Towards an Alternative Feminist Canon Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir Section 5: Venues Introduction to Section 5 Benedikt Hjartarson J.O. Mallander and the Nordic Neo-Avant-Garde Sami Sjöberg Was ist der Fall? What is the Case? Mr. Klein’s Last Moments (P)reconstructed by Mail Peter van der Meijden Toward a Kinetic Icelandic Culture – Friðrik Þór Friðriksson, Suðurgata 7 and Experimental Film in Iceland Benedikt Hjartarson Look Back, Dig Out, Mix Up, Think Forward – The Archival Activism of OEI Thomas Hvid Kromann The Bergensbrag Generation – The Rise of Independent Literary Platforms in Norway, 2000–2005 Susanne Christensen Investigative Infrastructures – Nordic Small Presses of the Twenty-First Century Ana Stanićević Locality and Literary Intervention – Ida Börjel’s Skåneradio Marianne Ølholm Danish Children’s and Youth Television from an Avant-Garde Perspective Christa Lykke Christensen The Ultima Festival in Oslo – Institutionalising the Avant-Garde? Astrid Kvalbein Section 6: Subcultures Introduction to Section 6 Laura Luise Schultz The Copenhagen Punk Years – Art with No Future? Marie Arleth Skov The Performance Group Værst’s Nine Performance Videos for Sort Sol’s Album Flow My Firetear Magnus Kaslov Beyond the Borders – Elgaland-Vargaland and the Association for Temporary Art Håkan Nilsson The Happy Antagonist – Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki’s Underground Super-8 Films Tytti Rantanen Immigrant Film Co-Operatives in Sweden – The Most Typical Avant-Garde Lars Gustaf Andersson and John Sundholm Specialists in Revolt – The Surrealist Group of Stockholm Kristoffer Noheden “To Be Fully Subconscious” – On the Medúsa Group Úlfhildur Dagsdóttir Home to Hell – Tóroddur Poulsen Kinna Poulsen A “Cow-Napping” in Context: From the Scribble Board to Zero Tolerance – (Sub)Cultural Interventions in the Public Realms of Stockholm, 1968–2004 Jacob Kimvall “… because enmity and admiration go hand in hand” – Guy Maddin’s Tales from the Gimli Hospital Kjartan Már Ómarsson Section 7: Postmodernism and Re-Enactments Introduction to Section 7 Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam Postmodern Avant-Garde in Theory and in Poetry in Finland at the End of the Twentieth Century Harri Veivo Avant-Garde vs. “Avant-Garde” – Danish Artists of the 1980s as Successors to and Rebels against the 1960s Avant-Garde Kamma Overgaard Hansen Traces of Avant-Garde Strategies in Danish Poetry of the 1980s Marianne Ølholm Cecilie Løveid – Postmodern Recycling of the Avant-Garde Wenche Larsen French Feminist Theory and Surrealism in Karin Moe’s Kjønnskrift (Sextext) Gerd Karin Omdal “New. Fantastic. Different” – Mariaana Jäntti’s Amorfiaana (1986) and Monika Fagerholm’s Diva (1998) as Finnish Feminist Avant-Garde Prose Fiction Kaisa Kurikka The Arctic Mongrel – Pia Arke’s Ethno-Aesthetics as Post-Colonial Avant-Gardism Mette Sandbye Section 8: The End of the Avant-Garde? Introduction to Section 8 Tania Ørum Superflex and the End of Art Solveig Gade A BIGamist Bricoleur – The Postmodern Avant-Gardism of Bjarke Ingels Kasper Lægring Avant-Garde Design in Denmark – Four Cases Concerning Furniture Peter Brix Søndergaard Avant-Garde and Post-Colonial? – How to Square the Circle in a Nordic Country with a Colonial Past Anne Ring Petersen Constructing an Avant-Garde Canon in the Twenty-First Century – On the Icelandic Poetry Group Nýhil Benedikt Hjartarson Precarious Life – Nielsen’s Search for a Life beyond Identity Laura Luise Schultz A Contemporary Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries? Subversion or Subvention Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen Index
