FOR
IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
February
20,
2013
Media
Contacts:
Anne
Edgar,
Anne
Edgar
Associates
[email protected],
646.336.7230
Kate
Erickson,
Scandinavia
House,
[email protected],
212.847.9717
MUNCH
AND
WARHOL:
SCANDINAVIA
HOUSE
UP‐ENDS
CONVENTIONAL
WISDOM
ON
TWO
ART
ICONS
New
York
—
Beginning
Saturday,
April
27,
The
American‐
Scandinavian
Foundation
(ASF)
at
Scandinavia
House:
The
Nordic
Center
in
America
offers
intriguing
new
insights
into
the
oeuvres
of
two
artists
who
would
seem
to
have
little
in
common
aside
from
having
been
extensively
researched
around
the
world
and
posthumously
enshrined
in
art
and
culture,
high
and
low.
On
view
through
Saturday,
July
27,
2013,
MUNCH
|
WARHOL
and
the
Andy
Warhol
(1928‐1987)
The
Scream
(After
Munch),
1984.
Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board, 40x32
in.
(101.6
x
81.28
cm)
The
Andy
Warhol
Museum,
Pittsburgh,
Founding
Collection,
Contribution
of
The
Andy
Warhol
Foundation
for
the
Visual
Arts,
Inc.
1998.1.2546
©2013
The
Andy
Warhol
Foundation
for
the
Visual
Arts,
Inc./Artists
Rights
Society
(ARS),
New
York
Multiple
Image
pairs
fin‐de‐siècle
lithographs
by
Edvard
Munch
with
large‐scale
screen
prints
by
Andy
Warhol.
The
thrilling,
Day‐Glo
hued
works
made
by
Warhol,
after
Munch,
in
the
mid‐1980s
will
surprise
many
visitors:
while
known
to
experts,
the
series
was
never
was
never
published
as
an
edition,
nor
displayed
comprehensively
in
the
U.S.
MUNCH
|
WARHOL
has
been
co‐organized
by
one
of
the
world’s
authorities
on
Munch,
Patricia
G.
Berman,
professor
of
art
history
at
Wellesley
College
and
the
University
of
Oslo,
in
collaboration
with
Pari
Stave,
consulting
curator
to
Scandinavia
House,
as
part
of
Munch
150,
an
international
celebration
in
2013
marking
the
150th
anniversary
of
Munch’s
birth.
MUNCH
|
WARHOL
is
the
only
Munch
150
project
in
the
United
States.
2
“This
exhibition
is
perfectly
timed
to
honor
Norway’s
Edvard
Munch,
an
artist
whose
paintings
were
first
displayed
in
this
country
in
Scandinavian
Art
Exhibition
of
1912,
a
landmark
exhibition
organized
by
The
American‐Scandinavian
Foundation,”
notes
Edward
P.
Gallagher,
President
of
the
ASF.
“It
is
gratifying
to
see
the
Foundation
continue
to
contribute
to
the
appreciation
of
Munch
more
than
a
century
later.
”
MUNCH
|
WARHOL
finds
a
surprisingly
close
alignment
between
two
artists
who
might
otherwise
seem
to
occupy
utterly
different
planets
by
focusing
on
their
variations
on
four
famous
Munch
motifs—The
Scream,
Madonna,
Self‐Portrait
with
Skeleton
Arm,
and
The
Brooch.
Eva
Mudocci.
“Even
though
Warhol
offered
himself
up
as
all
surface,
and
Munch,
all
impenetrable
depth,
this
exhibition
finds
many
similarities
in
the
ways
in
which
the
two
artists
built
their
careers
by
carefully
controlling
their
public
personas
and
artistic
production,”
remarks
Dr.
Berman.
“Munch’s
habit
of
repeating
motifs
has
been
understood
to
be
prompted
by
compulsion
and
anxiety,”
continues
Dr.
Berman.
“But
it
also
helped
him
get
through
dry
periods,
when
he
needed
money,
and
was
a
strategy
he
used
to
reassure
his
audience
as
he
experimented
with
new
styles.
Far
from
being
an
isolate,
Munch
was
very
much
in
control
of
his
career,
demanding
and
winning
the
right
to
sequence
his
works
in
exhibition
and
keeping
hold
of
the
reins
on
the
selling
of
his
art.”
“The
31
prints
on
view
here
invite
a
close
reading
of
the
craft
of
printmaking
itself,
as
well
as
meditation
on
what
is
an
original
and
what
is
a
copy,”
says
Dr.
Berman.
“The
visitor
will
find
rare
examples
by
Munch
showcasing
his
delicate
hand‐tinting
and
use
of
diaphanous
Japan
paper
as
well
as
large‐scale
prints
by
Warhol
illustrating
his
use
of
a
‘rainbow
roll,’
the
effect
that
emerges
when
a
squeegee
is
pulled
across
a
silkscreen,
creating
multi‐colored
lines
that
look
like
varicolored
yarn.”
One
of
the
exhibition’s
highlights,
Munch’s
trial
proof
for
Self‐Portrait
with
Skeleton
Arm
(1895),
which
has
never
before
been
seen
in
the
U.S.,
exemplifies
how
the
nature
of
printmaking
informs
the
meaning
of
these
works.
For
the
self‐portrait,
Munch
drew
directly
on
a
lithographic
stone,
and
once
the
image
was
printed
on
paper,
hand
painted
its
background.
The
result
is
a
more
3
conventional
self‐portrait
than
evolved
in
subsequent
iterations:
the
later,
and
more
familiar,
version
in
the
exhibition
depicts
Munch
as
a
face
floating
in
the
center
of
a
pool
of
black
darkness.
In
Warhol’s
hands,
the
variations
continued,
including
eight
diptychs
on
view
in
the
exhibition
pairing
Munch’s
Madonna
and
Self‐Portrait
with
Skeleton
Arm.
Here,
Munch’s
iconic
temptress
framed
with
a
pattern
of
undulating
sperm
and
a
fetus‐like
shape,
and
the
restrained
self‐portrait,
are
now
brought
together
as
an
improbably
couple.
Viewers
will
see
how,
after
Warhol’s
master
printer
Rupert
Jason
Smith
printed
the
silkscreen,
Warhol
interpreted
Munch’s
delicately
drawn
lines
as
strong
decorative
forms
in
Self‐Portrait
with
Skeleton’s
Arm,
perhaps
in
part
to
echo
the
swirls
and
vertical
lines
of
the
Madonna.
MUNCH
|
WARHOL
devotes
a
section
to
that
most
famous
of
cultural
icons,
The
Scream
(1895),
showing
how
Warhol
in
one
case
blew
up
the
image
to
nearly
five
feet
and
in
seven
versions
pushed
it
to
the
brink
of
feeling
and
visual
dissolution.
Despite
his
stance
of
superficiality,
Warhol
seems
to
have
devoted
an
unusual
amount
of
effort
to
creating
variations
on
The
Scream
that
intensified
the
already
combustible
emotion
of
the
original.
He
experimented
with
juxtaposing
hot
colors
with
cool;
printing
intentionally
out
of
register,
endowing
the
scream
with
a
near‐physical
vibration;
and
tracing
Munch’s
lines,
while
stripping
the
image
of
tones,
so
that
the
iconic
figure
became
increasingly
disembodied.
“When
Warhol
was
commissioned
to
appropriate
Munch’s
motifs,
one
master
of
repetition
and
multiplication
took
on
another.
His
large‐scale
prints
both
parody
and
honor
the
Norwegian
artist’s
work,
oscillating
between
surface
and
depth,
experiment
and
production
line,
and
disclosure
and
effacement,”
says
Dr.
Berman.
Publication
MUNCH
|
WARHOL
will
be
accompanied
by
a
fully
illustrated
catalogue,
available
nationwide.
Featuring
an
essay
by
Dr.
Berman
and
Pari
Stave’s
interview
with
art
dealer
Roland
Augustine,
former
co‐director
of
Galleri
Bellman,
which
commissioned
the
Warhol
project.
The
catalogue
is
published
by
the
ASF
and
distributed
in
the
United
States
by
D.A.P.
4
Organization
&
Support
MUNCH
|
WARHOL
and
the
Multiple
Image
was
made
possible
by
contributions
from
the
Royal
Norwegian
Consulate
General
in
New
York,
Mr.
and
Mrs.
Trond
S.
Jensen,
Kjersti
and
Bernt
Reitan,
Nelson
Blitz,
Jr.
and
Catherine
Woodard,
the
Bård
and
Barbara
Bunaes
Family
Fund,
and
Bente
Svensen
Frantz.
Additional
support
has
come
from
The
Barbro
Osher
Pro
Suecia
Foundation’s
generous
grant
for
Scandinavia
House
cultural
programs
and
exhibitions,
as
well
as
The
F.
Donald
Kenney
Fund
for
the
Visual
Arts
and
The
Norwegian
Centennial
Cultural
Fund
of
The
American‐
Scandinavian
Foundation.
Transportation
of
artworks
from
Norway
was
provided
by
SAS
Scandinavian
Airlines.
The
exhibition’s
companion
catalogue
has
been
made
possible
by
a
grant
from
the
Fritt
Ord
Foundation.
The
American‐Scandinavian
Foundation
&
Scandinavia
House:
The
Nordic
Center
in
America
Incorporated
in
New
York
State
in
1911,
the
ASF
is
the
leading
cultural
and
educational
link
between
the
U.S.
and
the
Nordic
countries.
It
is
a
publicly‐supported,
non‐profit
501
(c)
(3)
organization
that
provides
a
forum
for
the
exchange
of
ideas
and
cultural
understanding
and
has
an
extensive
program
of
fellowships,
grants,
internships/training
programs,
publishing,
membership
offerings,
and
cultural
activities.
Scandinavia
House
–
home
to
the
ASF
–
offers
a
wide
range
of
programs
presenting
contemporary
Nordic
culture
that
encompasses
the
visual
arts,
music,
and
literature
along
with
public
policy,
business,
finance,
and
technology.
These
programs
include
art,
design,
and
historical
exhibitions
as
well
as
films,
concerts,
readings,
lectures,
symposia,
language
courses,
and
kids
and
family
programs
that
illustrate
and
illuminate
the
modern‐day
vitality
of
the
Nordic
countries.
Scandinavia
House
is
located
at
58
Park
Avenue,
at
38th
Street,
New
York
City.
3rd
Floor
Gallery
hours
are
Tuesday
through
Saturday,
12
to
6
pm
(Wednesday
until
7
pm).
Gallery
admission
is
$5
($3
Seniors
&
Students
with
a
valid
ID;
Free
for
ASF
Members).
For
more
information,
visit:
scandinaviahouse.org,
amscan.org,
Facebook,
Twitter,
YouTube.
###