Presentation from a business seminar in Skagen on Life-boats,
by Dr. Phil Else Marie Bukdahl, former Rector of the Royal Danish Academy
of Fine Arts

Presentation from the Business Seminar in Skagen on Life-boats, by Dr. Phil
Else Marie Bukdahl, former Rector of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts

The visual artist Marit Benthe Norheim is above all known for her many unique sculptures and installations – often on a very large scale – which she has created especially in Norway, Denmark, England and Iceland. She possesses a rare ability to give the places where her sculptures are erected a new identity and a power of fascination that brings light and joy into everyday life. We need only think of The Lady by the Sea, which most of you will know, and which has become a landmark for Sæby. Almost all of her sculptures are modelled in concrete. They radiate both formal simplicity, a particular sensitivity, and an intense expressive force.

Marit Benthe Norheim’s sculptures almost always contain a dual perspective. They are filled with presence, but at the same time they open towards a universal horizon. This duality has in a compelling way been interpreted by Geir Johnson’s music, which is incorporated into many of her works.

She has also been deeply engaged in creating sculptures that can move, and thus are able to open new experiential spaces and reveal new perspectives. This is demonstrated with striking clarity in Rolling Angels (2000–2001), which you can see here at this venue.

The relationship between sculpture, movement and music has been interpreted in a completely new way in her Camping Women on Wheels, which you can also encounter in this exhibition. Here we meet different female figures, whose skirts envelop caravans, each revealing a different facet of the often enigmatic female nature. We are confronted with the dangerous, alluring Siren, the pious Maria the protector, the frightened and anxious refugee, the all-embracing camping mother, and the beautiful bride.

The Camping Women show that visual art holds a particular sensuous knowledge that expands our field of experience, while also making visible new connections that have disappeared in our fragmented and unpredictable world. Precisely because the Camping Women have been able to travel across almost all of Scandinavia, they have had the opportunity to convey these experiences in a new and more direct way. New ties have been forged between the world of art and our everyday reality.

With Life-boats – a seaborne installation consisting of three boats shaped as women – Marit Benthe Norheim is now in the process of creating, and soon launching, a work capable of establishing new and far-reaching connections. On their journey through Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, and through their many stops in different cities, they will be able to foster new encounters and in doing so, make visible the sense of community within the EU that we too often forget. They can build a bridge between the art, culture and society of Vendsyssel and the artistic and social life of the EU, which must in the future become a cornerstone of European culture.

I believe they should set sail from Skagen, where once Danish art was created that is now making its way into Europe – think, for example, of Anna Ancher and P. S. Krøyer, who will soon be exhibited in European museums. But the three “seaborne women” will at the same time become a symbol of Vendsyssel and its present-day efforts to create balance between tradition and innovation, between the local and the global, and to place true humanity at the center.

We hope that these “seaborne women” may be launched and realize our dreams: that they can create new life-affirming connections and lay the foundation for love and community.

Dr. Phil and former Rector of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts,
Else Marie Bukdahl