Squabbles delay new Edvard Munch museum in Oslo
Next year will mark the 150th anniversary of Edvard Munch's birth but still the artworks he bequeathed to Oslo do not have a proper home
He may be acclaimed in the art world and coveted by thieves, but Edvard Munch is starved of recognition in his native Norway, where squabbles have delayed a new museum worthy of his oeuvre.
Munch, who died in 1944, bequeathed an enormous collection to the Norwegian capital, including 1,100 paintings, 3,000 drawings and 18,000 etchings.
But the current Munch Museum, built cheaply after the second world war in a rundown Oslo neighbourhood, does not do justice to the priceless trove.
"It's time to have something more modern that would enable us to better welcome the public and exhibit Munch's work from other perspectives, in broader contexts, both his and ours," museum director Stein Olav Henrichsen said.
While all agree on the need for a better museum, there are divisions over where to place it.
Oslo's city council agreed in 2008 to erect a building near the new, futuristic opera house on the shores of the Oslo fjord, but those plans were scrapped three years later when the populist right suddenly withdrew its support without a full explanation.
The move was a shock and an embarrassment: Spanish architects had already been hired and had drawn up plans for Lambda, a super-modern leaning glass building, at great expense.
The issue has been at a standstill ever since, and Oslo has been unable to come to an agreement on any of the current options.
Those include a return to the Spanish concept; or a move to the ageing main building of the National Gallery downtown; or perhaps a total renovation of the museum's current location just outside the city centre. All are estimated to cost around 1.6 billion kroner (HK$2.2 billion).
Failure to reach agreement could be interpreted as a Norwegian snub to the country's most famous artist, in sharp contrast to his huge international appeal.
A million people recently visited a Munch exhibit that toured Paris, Frankfurt and London. And one of four versions of Munch painted - the only one in private hands - was sold this year at a New York auction for the record sum of US$119.9 million.
By comparison, the Munch Museum in Oslo attracts around 126,000 visitors per year, even though it owns two versions of , perhaps the most famous expression of existential angst.
"I don't think Norwegians really understand the power of Edvard Munch's work," Henrichsen said. "His cultural and economic importance is underestimated here."
The artist's great-great-niece, Elisabeth Munch Ellingsen, called the impasse "shameful and scandalous".
"Considering the treasure they're sitting on, it's shameful the local politicians can't find a solution. When they decided to apply to host the Olympic Winter Games, it took them five minutes," she said.
Ellingsen has written to the government asking it to intervene, but to no avail. Culture Minister Hadia Tajik responded that Munch's bequest was to the city of Oslo and not the state.
While Munch features on a Norwegian banknote, this is not the first time the artist's legacy has been mistreated.
Oslo demolished the home he left to the city in his will and turned part of the land into a car park in 1960.
In Norway, it sometimes seems the only ones who really covet Munch are thieves: two versions of were stolen, in 1994 and 2004. Both paintings were later recovered.
