100 Years of Nordic Art

At arm’s length is a military term, indicating the distance between two soldiers who form part of a squad. The distance between them should be the length of an arm so that they can be close enough to support each other in battle but far enough to be able to manoeuvre their weapons without risking injuring one another. The term is also employed in other areas affecting human emotional life as well as in business. In recent years, it has been used in cultural policy to denote a distance between artistic practitioners and the state’s control of culture. In this exhibition, we tap into the ambiguity of the concept to portray the manner in which Nordic artists related to the avant-garde of modern art with both rapprochement and distance.

All the exhibited works are loaned from the Tangen Collection, which is owned and managed by the Norwegian AKO Foundation. In total, the collection comprises some 5,000 works focused on Nordic art and Artipelag is exhibiting a selection of 150 works from the collection by 46 artists from Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway. Structured in eight parts, the presentation highlights various eras in the history of Nordic art from the breakthrough of Modernism to the present day.