Oslo, Norwegian government removes Picasso murals from building to be demolished

The removal of two murals by Pablo Picasso (Malaga, 1881 - Mougins, 1973) in Oslo, the capital of Norway, has been completed: Here, the Spanish artist designed between the late 1950s and the late 1960s some works for two buildings that are part of the Regjeringskvartalet (“Government Quarter”) complex, theY Block (from 1968) and theH Block (from 1959), both designed by architect Erling Viksjø. The Y Block, home to government offices, had been damaged during the July 22, 2011 bombings and its demolition had long been planned, although opposed by many, since Viksjø was one of the leading exponents of modernism in Scandinavia and his two buildings are important testaments to the architecture of those years.

On Monday, workers began dismantling the murals of the Y Block, which houses the Fisherman and the Seagull, finishing the work in an hour and a half. All of Picasso’s murals were materially created by one of his collaborators, Norwegian artist Carl Nesjar (Larvik, 1920 - Oslo, 2015): they will now be relocated to a newly constructed building, which according to plans will be built in 2025. Of course, this has also been strongly criticized, since the works were specifically designed for the buildings being demolished, and as a result it will be a separation from the context for which they were created (in fact, the new location will be divorced from the original context). On the other hand, the reasons of those who instead support the government’s operation by arguing with security reasons, since the site is very busy. The Y Block had not been used since 2011, when bombs planted by extremist Anders Breivik heavily damaged them.

There had also been a large international mobilization to prevent this end of the affair: a petition on Change.org, calling for the rescue of the Y Block (a building “of exceptional architectural, artistic, historical and symbolic value”), collected more than 60 thousand signatures. “The Norwegian government,” the petition reads, “should be proud to have this building, which has withstood a terrorist attack, an attack against humanity and democracy,” values of which, according to the signatories, the Y Block has become a symbol. The petition was supported by the Norwegian Commission for UNESCO, the National Trust of Norway, Icomos, the Twentieth Century Society, Europa Nostra, as well as many intellectuals and artists from around the world.

Statsbygg, or the government agency for public works that is in charge of the operation, is responding to the criticism through its director of communications, Hege Njaa Aschim, who through a note lets it be known that “the bombs of 2011 changed the world, and we have to think now about a new world.” An explanation that has not convinced, so much so that protests continue even as workers have begun dismantling the building. Until work on the new building is completed, the Fisherman will be on public display elsewhere, while the Seagull will remain in climate-controlled storage.

Pictured: the removal operations of Picasso’s mural. Photo by Mímir Kristjánsson

Oslo, Norwegian government removes Picasso murals from building to be demolished

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