Few artists seem to stir up controversy as regularly as the Norwegian installation artist Lars Ø. Ramberg. He tends to make strong political statements through his work without getting lofty or whiney. And he does so with a sense of humor and a good grasp of the workings of modern media.
As was the case when he repainted French designed public toilets red, white, and blue to comment on the French revolution’s influence on the Norwegian declaration of independence. Or for example when he used therapeutic lamps to question a Danish welfare project.
Lars Ramberg’s works are typically large-scale projects that tend to get large-scale attention. In 2005, he placed the word ZWEIFEL (German for DOUBT) in giant neon letters on top of the Palace of the Republic in Central Berlin. The art project was an attempt to save the vacated government building by turning it into a virtual institution - the Palast des Zweifels (Palace of Doubt).
Almost all of Germany’s media commented on his Palast of Zweifel project. This in turn prompted Ramberg to publish his own newspaper, the Zweifel Allgemeine Zeitung, on the 60th anniversary of the end of the WWII. From 350 headlines collected from German papers (published in the period between January to May 2005) that included ZWEIFEL in the title, Ramberg randomly selected 24 authentic titles as the content for Zweifel Allgemeine Zeitung and printed an edition of 5000 newspapers.
Most German TV stations ended up having LIVE coverage of the different events surrounding the project (concerts, public speeches etc) and Der Spiegel published a special issue about a nation in search of itself.
On the last day before the installation was taken down 800 Neo-Nazis tried to march from Alexanderplatz towards Unter Den Linden, 4000 antiracists tried to stop them, 2000 policemen from the German Special Forces tried to separate them and in the middle of the chaos 600 demonstrators broke into the Palast des Zweifels and climbed up onto the roof in protest.
In the months after the installation was taken down, Berliners started using the projects’ invitation cards as stencils. Soon the word ZWEIFEL began appearing all over the city in the form of tags. The project lived on well after its physical death.
Another Ramberg project that stirred up controversy ocurred during the commemoration of the Norwegian Centennial in 2005. Ramberg was commissioned to create a new installation and responded by proposing an installation entitled Liberté. The concept, involving the re-branding of 3 Parisian public toilets, started a huge public debate. Eventually, the constitutional museum at Eidsvoll in Norway found the concept too confrontational and rejected Ramberg’s proposal (much of the reason had to do with the fact that the art would actually function as public toilets). An American magazine picked up the story and asked: ”What does a young nation like Norway do when celebrating its 100 years of freedom? It sensors its own Statue of Liberty?” Eventually the installation found a permanent home at the National Gallery in Oslo.
And then there was his Copenhagen installation of 2002; Pølse Aid (Hot Dog Aid) in which Ramberg installed therapeutic lamps in some of the Copenhagen hotdog vending carts. The project sought to draw attention to a Danish law that gives only those Danes who are handicapped the right to operate food wagons. Since the monopoly comes at the price of the sausage vendor’s health, Ramberg installed therapeutic lamps to ease the vendors’ unfortunate situation and raise the irony to public attention.
Fremdgehen in 2004 was yet another controversial Ramberg installation and the beginning of an on-going protest. The protest is against the Norwegian government’s treatment of women who had romantic affairs with German soldiers during the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II. The installation consisted of large neon letters spelling the word FREMDGEHEN, that were placed on the roof of the central train station in Berlin. The sign was flanked by two Norwegian flags that had been modified with the colors of the German flag. Literally translated, the word fremdgehen means to go to the foreign (go= gehen / foreign= fremd), which is what one does when one leaves one’s homeland. But the word is used colloquially to mean ‘unfaithful to your lover’.
As part of the project, Ramberg made a video of an interview with one of the thousands of women who were deported from Norway to Germany 1946. The woman tells her story in full detail; about how her passport was taken, her stay in a prison camp in Norway and how she and others were deported to Germany in ships and cattle wagons only to be eventually kicked out at the main train station in Berlin.
The same station, Hamburger Bahnhof, today houses the National Museum of Contemporary Art. The video was shown there for the first time together with the neon installation on the roof and the two manipulated flags on the towers of the building.
Why does Ramberg’s work appeal to us so much? Partly it’s due to the design elements and architectural scale of his work. Perhaps it’s also due to the fact that Ramberg clearly understands the power of media and the viral nature of communication. And possibly it’s because his work does what good art should do - it forces you to take a second look. And when you do, you are rewarded with discovering more and being forced to think deeper and longer.
Ramberg was born in Oslo in 1964. He received his engineering and arts education in Oslo but has lived and worked in Berlin since 1998.
For further background on Ramberg’s Palast des Zweifels installation there is a good article in the New York Times.
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