Figuration in its broadest definition was predominant in GRAS’ output. If one is to judge by the portfolio alone, figurative styles dominate and is indicative of the different artists’ personal styles outside the workshop. As we have seen Lange and Orud used both abstract and figurative measures for creation, in the following section I will look closer at the silkscreens that use purely figurative means in their expression. “Realist works can disturb or please or educate us by showing reality as not what we think we know, by showing realities we have never seen or dreamed, or by making speakable realities that might previously have seemed only idiosyncratic or incommunicable.”103 To an extent Rachel Bowlby’s words ring true of the figurative works presented below, in multiple ways these prints present us with a reality truer than most to that of ‘1968’. Kjær, Kleiva, Krohg, Lind, Melbye Gulliksen, Storeide and Storn display figurative elements in their folder prints, yet these have very different origins. Predominantly this group was figurative outside the workshop and most can be characterised by a preference for political art production. One could argue that there are two different ‘schools’ within the figurative part of the folder. On the one hand, Storeide, Kleiva and Kjær display explicit references to ideology; on the other hand, Storn, Melbye Gulliksen, Lind and Krohg are less obviously ideological and use a pictorial language in which the meaning is often concealed. This strict division is hazy and elements are often borrowed from across art history, significant to what one would call post-modernism. However, this definition does not pertain to all of the figurative works in the folder. Storeide’s print owes more to a traditional poster language than the others and Lind’s simplicity inFest seemingly circumscribes any political significance. The following section, therefore, focuses on the two separate dimensions of figuration that I have chosen to characterise as representativefiguration andambiguousfiguration.
RepresentativeFiguration
103Bowlby, Rachel, ‘Foreword’, Beaumont, Matthew (ed.),A Concise Companion to Realism, Oxford:
Out of the whole GRAS portfolio none can be said to illustrate more traditional poster-making elements than Egil Storeide’s Vi blir flere (Our Numbers are Increasing, Fig. 4.31). It is a reworking of an already existing work into graphics, namely his painting VIM (1969, Fig. 4.32). The original painting is painted on what looks to be a wooden fence, as if the outdoor art piece has been brought into the gallery space accidentally. The print is representational in that it depicts a demonstration either coming or going and the red banners, which stand out from the blue and black uniformity of the urban landscape, tells us the group are of working class origin. So similar are the figures in the painting and the print that one might assume stencilling has been used to recreate the exact crowd. The homogenous appearance and repetition of ‘cut-out’ figures give the impression of the true notion of communism – the masses. The title further stresses the point of a growing workers’ movement, yet the five rows of figures give the group a marginal impact as they travel through the empty cityscape. On one of the two light blue buildings on the horizon one can read “the patient.”104This leads the viewer to assume that the diligent demonstration has been going on for decades as they wait for their ‘numbers to increase’. Storeide then portrays the perseverance of the workers’ movement over centuries. Norwegian Reidar Aulie’s social realist pictures of the working class from the beginning to mid twentieth-century come close to Storeide here, perhaps not in stylistic terms but in essence. From 1958 onwards Aulie was first professor, then rector of the Academy in Oslo. Aulie is considered a great painter of social street scenes starting with his breakthrough painting, Tendens (Tendency, 1931, Fig. 4.33). However, there is a big gap between Aulie’s overcrowded street view overpopulated by red flags and Storeide’s almost empty picture. As Storeide uses almost de-humanised cut-outs to represent his workers it makes the scene more static and tableaux-like in spirit. Even if the poster seems melancholic, the title demands a positive view – the working class who have struggled for years are increasingly supported.
The symbolic red flag sways in the wind over Kleiva’s green field in Frigjering (Liberation, Fig. 4.34), overcrowded with white daffodils signifying the budding spring. The landscape underlines the Spring of Utopia, the Socialist emblem breaking free from the web of lines that has encased it. These lines create a grid, which displays kinship to Piet Mondrian when compared to Composition No 10 (Pier and Ocean)(1915, Fig. 4.35). The red flag has appeared in many forms throughout the history of art, and in printmaking it is particularly poignant for its simple yet highly symbolic meaning. A nineteenth century example that
should be mentioned here, not only for its resemblance, but for its political affiliation is the 1892 Les XX catalogue cover by Georges Lemmen (Fig. 4.36). The Les XX banner is unfurled vigorously across a fruit bearing tree “…whose roots reveal not only the force of its artistic mission but also its diversity.”105 Edmond Picard, a fellow member of Les XX, defended in his writings social art and urged artists to transform society by getting involved with it through their art production.106“…The hour has arrived to dip one’s pen into red ink” Picard wrote in 1886 and ninety years later Kleiva and GRAS certainly followed suit.107 It is interesting how both images depict a centrally placed flag and relate to passionate belief sets that connect to the roots of society – workers.
The red flag is mostly associated with social realism in art, more specifically socialist realism as it appeared in the Soviet Union and its satellite states. However, the first red flags appear to have developed as a flag of defiance, a sign that villages or castles would not surrender under siege. Historically the red flag was raised to convey the blood that had been or would be shed, either in remembrance or as an omen. It is speculated, that it first appeared during the 1791 Revolution in France and was used as national emblem by the Jacobins during the Reign of Terror (1793-1794). However, Frederick Engels stated in his survey of the German peasant revolt that “…the peasants in Ried, above the Ulm, rose on February 9 [1525], assembled in a camp near Baltringen, […] hoisted the red flag, and formed the Baltringen Troop…”.108Engels’ statement associated the red flag with the peasantry and their struggle long before the French adopted it. Represented in Romantic form in the nineteenth- century work by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux,Lamartine, before the Hôtel de Ville, Paris, rejects the Red Flag, 25 February 1848 (Fig. 4.37), in which the red flag is rejected in preference for the Tricolore. During 1848 the flag was honoured by Socialists and Radical Republicans and the Paris Commune raised a red banner when it seized power in 1871. In his History of the Paris Commune of 1871, Prosper Olivier Lissagaray recalls “the electors of the
105Block, Jane, ‘Les XX and La Libre Esthétique: Belgium’s laboratories for new ideas’, Stevens, MaryAnne &
Hoozee, Robert (ed.),Impressionism to Symbolism: The Belgian Avant-Garde 1880-1900, London: Royal Academy of Arts; Ghent: Ludion Press, 1994, p48
106The group raised everyday objects to the status of Fine Art in their exhibitions. Rugs, furniture, wallpaper,
glass, ceramics, books, iron work and paintings were all exhibited together, as a complete environment could improve one’s daily life. It bestowed on the artist a social role, one that was instrumental in the reform of turn of the twentieth century society, and making available pieces of art to not only the wealthy but democratically to all classes of society. Les XX has much in common with the British Arts and Crafts Movement.
107Picard, Edmond, ‘L’Art et la Révolution’,L’Art moderne, 18 July 1886, quoted in Block, ‘Les XX and La
Libre Esthétique’,Impressionism to Symbolism, p48
108Engels, Frederick,The Peasant War in Germany, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House; London:
St. Antoine quarter formed in long columns […] headed by a red flag…”109 Illustrations produced in 1871 confirm this (Fig. 4.38), and it must therefore be assumed that an ideological connection with socialism and communism arose from this moment in history.
Russian artists celebrated the Bolshevik Revolution before socialist realism became doctrine by representing the red flag as synonymous with the workers’ victory over the ruling classes. It often appears in the worker’s hand, as in the poster for women’s emancipation by Adolf Strakhov (Fig. 4.39), while in other examples, such as Filonov’sPetrograd Proletariat Fomula (1920-1, Fig. 4.40), the flag’s essence is portrayed in abstract terms by way of its colour. Furthermore, Lenin on the Tribune(1929-30, Fig. 4.41) by Gerasimov illustrates how the flag itself adds movement and drama to a strictly speaking socialist realist picture. Even though, there are examples where the red flag is centrally placed, as in John Heartfield’s cover forIllustrierte Geschichte der Russischen Revolution 1917 (Illustrated History of the Russian Revolution 1917, 1929 Fig. 4.42), it is commonly held by a worker’s hand.110 In Kleiva’s silkscreen, however, the flag stands alone and no human hand is holding it. Rather than utilising a socialist realist pictorial language, Kleiva is removing the flag from its propagandistic past and reconfiguring its symbolism to a post-modern context. By using the flag alone, it becomes representative of the ideology rather than the class, and it becomes truly an icon of the left. At the same time the landscape connects the flag directly with Norway. However, this might not have been Kleiva’s intention, even if it is topical with birch-trees in the background.111 Intentional or not, the link between national identity and political belonging has been firmly rooted in the Norwegian worker’s movement since the mid nineteenth-century, and egalitarianism was synonymous with the struggle for independence in the early twentieth-century.
Frigjering’s landscape reappears in the triptych Blad frå Imperialistens Dagbok I-III (Leafs from the Imperialist’s Diary I-III, 1971, Fig. 4.43) as well as the facsimile, where the
109Lissagaray,History of the Paris Commune of 1871, in French 1876: English 1886,
http://www.marxists.org/history/france/archive/lissagaray/ch08.htm (accessed on 9 March 2010)
110The photomontage appeared inSocial Kunst 8, which was published in Norway and Denmark in 1932. Kleiva
might therefore have seen it and considering his interest in assemblage and the use of the photo emulsion technique, Heartfield and Dada must have been of interest to him. Particularly as Heartfield produced politically charged, yet artistically experimental, posters that strike a cord with GRAS production and ideology.
111One of the most famous Norwegian songs, often played and sung on the Norwegian constitutional day, 17th
May,Norge i Rødt, Hvitt og Blått(Norway in Red, White and Blue), and written during the occupation in 1941 by Finn Bø, Bias Bernhoft and Arild Feldborg, recalls a similar scene to Kleiva’s print. Although the song was written during the German occupation it refers to something significantly and specifically Norwegian in the landscape. See Appendix II
Se en hvitstammet bjerk oppi lien See a white trunked birch on the hill rammer stripen av blåklokker inn framing the row of bluebells
mot den rødmalte stuen ved stien against the red painted cottage by the path det er flagget som vaier i vind. that is the flag that sways in the wind.
Mondrianesque grid has disappeared, Ein vakker morgon (A beautiful morning, 1972, Fig. 4.44).112The flag was important to Kleiva as his earliest known political poster,Revolusjonen er i gang (The revolution is happening, 1969, Fig. 4.45) produced at Hjelmsgate, shows a simple flag with the political slogan across it - “The revolution is happening. Take part!” However, Frigjering is a much more refined poetic statement. The text has completely disappeared and the straightforward simplicity been replaced by a complex construction of very different elements. All of these elements are related to one specific and well-known worker’s movement song,Når jeg ser et rødt flag smælde(When I see a red flag flying, 1923) by Oscar Hansen. The first and last verses relate directly to Kleiva’s image, in which Kleiva has depicted the flag breaking through its lattice prison “on a crisp and fresh spring day”.113 The square format of the print could be related to Malevich’s Red Square. Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions (1915, Fig. 4.46), part of Malevich’s initial theorising of Suprematism, who was recorded saying “Paint a red square in your studios as a sign of the world revolution in art.”114 More in line with Malevich’s writings on Suprematism than withRed Squarespecifically, Kleiva uses geometric simplicity to portray an ‘icon of the time’. Frigjering is, however, manifested in a realistic form where the viewer is still viewing a representation of the world, even if the political is unconcealed and the image obviously artificial. In the use of framing here, Kleiva gives prominence to the print by relating it to painting and in effect Fine Art, as a result Kleiva plays with our preconceptions by blurring high and low, art and popular.Frigjeringmust be seen as an analogy to the budding optimism on the left for a socialist future, so indicative of the aspirations of ‘1968’. Art politically the image might also represent breaking down bourgeois modernism by way of an innovative
112The latter was used as a frontispiece to the literary journalProfiland, according to Krohg, became GRAS’s
most popular 1stof May poster. Krohg, Morten, ‘Kronologisk Oversikt’,Gras – 10 år etter, p14
113See Appendix II for full Danish text. As is evident in the translation below, the text and Kleiva’s print seem to
follow the same poetic principals. The song has been sung by the Scandinavian Left since its conception, and would definitively been known to Kleiva. The important references here is the first lines of the first and the last verse of the song:
Når jeg ser et rødt flag smælde When I see a red flag flying på en blank og vårfrisk dag, on a crisp and fresh Spring day, kan jeg høre det sælsomt fortælle I can hear it strangely tell the story om min verden, mit folk og min sag. of my world, my people and my cause. [...]
Det er sliddets slægters fane It is the hardship kin’s standard over fronten vid og bred. across the wide and broad Front. Den skal ungdommen ildne og mane, It will alight and conjure the youth, den skal knuse hvert grænsernes led. it will crush any constructs of limitation.
114Malevich, Kazimir, ‘Pamphlet of the Vitebsk Creative Committee – 1’, 1920, quoted in Tokareva &
Maximenko (Ed.),From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870-1925 from Moscow and St Petersburg, London: Palace Edistions Europe, Royal Academy of Arts, 2008, p296
neo-avant-garde art.115 Compared to his triptych, which juxtaposes the idyllic landscape with devices of war, such as the army boots, the helicopter squadron and the mushroom cloud, the opening up towards the red flag here represents a positive attitude – a Socialist Garden of Eden. The title, Liberation, delivers an idea that society will be liberated by communism/socialism and that the limitations (bourgeoisie), represented by the network of lines, will be crushed. The print can be viewed as a development of his earlier flag prints and the underlying message is the same – the revolution is underway.
Requiem by Kjær (Fig. 4.47) is a commemoration of the deceased communist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, who had been assassinated in Bolivia four years earlier. The image consists of a very simple structure and figuration, where a barren landscape is interrupted only by a monolith with a photograph featured in the worldwide press of Che Guevara taken after his death in 1967.116 Through the use of the photograph Kjær breaks up the two-dimensionality of the picture plane. The setting sun in the background, made up of simple circles of orange hues towards a white centre, draws upon the stripe paintings of Kjær’s Hard-Edge phase, a period of his career that would come to an end during his involvement with GRAS. The sun itself is the only sign of hope in this image, where the dark blue sky and black monument with its dark blue shadow appears to lament Che Guevara’s fate. The lifeless stare from the dead revolutionary’s head, amputated from its body and placed so close to the ground, is haunting; together with the sombre feel it makes a silent, yet dignified monument to the fallen hero. Kjær’s placement of the head appears to emphasise Che Guevara’s connection the people for whom he fought and lost his life, the lower classes. Che Guevara theorised that a revolutionary guerrilla war could only be won when it had the support of the lower classes, the farmers and workers. The image pays tribute both to Hard- Edge and Pop, the latter most likely the influence of Kleiva, two very different styles. However, the mixing of abstraction and figuration in Kjær’s work was to be a major feature throughout GRAS’ existence and not until what has been called the final image produced in the workshop, Sør-Amerikansk interiør (South American Interior, 1973-6, Fig. 4.72), did Kjær move away from this hybrid stripe-pop style. Although, Requiem clearly bridges, for Kjær, the difficulty of portraying a political subject with a non-figurative style, it has been
115I refer here to neo as in ‘new’ avant-garde as explored by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh inNeo-avantgarde and
Culture Industry, Cambridge; London: MIT Press, 2003; rather than the more negatively tinged concept in Bürger’sTheory of the Avant-Garde
116Ernesto Che Guevara was reported dead by the Bolivian Army in mid-October 1967. The photograph in
question here is not the famous and heavily reproduced image by Alberto Korda from 1960, published in 1967. It is one of the Associated Press photographs taken in Bolivia when his body was displayed after he was shot. See Chapter 5
hailed as Kjær’s first figurative picture. It might be that it was a natural step in the early development of an untrained artist.117 It is clear, however, that there was shift in style at this point, and the influence of Kjær’s growing interest in radical politics in conjunction with the circle of artists around him had a great part to play in that. Nonetheless, this picture must have been strongly influenced by another source, namely Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A