Hannah Ryggen
Woven Manifestos
26 Sep 2019 - 12 Jan 2020
Hannah Ryggen, Vi lever på en stjerne (We are Living on a Star), 1958, Tapestry weave in wool and linen, 400 x 300 cm, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum (National Museum of Decorative Arts and Design), Trondheim © H. Ryggen, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019, Photo: Thor Nielsen
HANNAH RYGGEN
Woven Manifestos
26 September 2019 – 12 January 2020
Curators Dr. Marit Paasche, Oslo And Esther Schlicht, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Hannah Ryggen weaves stories of striking topicality. Her monumental tapestries bravely tackle the fundamental issues of life in society today: the atrocity of war, the abuse of power, the dependence on nature and the relation to family as well as fellow men and women. Living on a small self-sufficient farm on the west coast of Norway, the Swedish-Norwegian artist created a powerful, politically inspired oeuvre. She launched spectacular visual attacks on Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini and made powerful statements of support to the victims of Fascism and Nazism. On the occasion of Norway’s turn as Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2019, the SCHIRN is dedicating a major monographic exhibition that will provide the first in-depth
insight into her oeuvre to the German public. The roughly 25 tapestries on display will also show Hannah Ryggen as a representative of a different kind of modernism, a modernism where elements from folk art and mythology are mixed with issues from contemporary life. She explored an entirely new range of motifs while using a traditional medium for an unprecedented purpose: making portable murals that communicated her potent political messages to the public.
Woven Manifestos
26 September 2019 – 12 January 2020
Curators Dr. Marit Paasche, Oslo And Esther Schlicht, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Hannah Ryggen weaves stories of striking topicality. Her monumental tapestries bravely tackle the fundamental issues of life in society today: the atrocity of war, the abuse of power, the dependence on nature and the relation to family as well as fellow men and women. Living on a small self-sufficient farm on the west coast of Norway, the Swedish-Norwegian artist created a powerful, politically inspired oeuvre. She launched spectacular visual attacks on Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini and made powerful statements of support to the victims of Fascism and Nazism. On the occasion of Norway’s turn as Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2019, the SCHIRN is dedicating a major monographic exhibition that will provide the first in-depth
insight into her oeuvre to the German public. The roughly 25 tapestries on display will also show Hannah Ryggen as a representative of a different kind of modernism, a modernism where elements from folk art and mythology are mixed with issues from contemporary life. She explored an entirely new range of motifs while using a traditional medium for an unprecedented purpose: making portable murals that communicated her potent political messages to the public.