Prank or editorial statement? Norwegian park's nude sculptures censored
Last Updated: Thursday, March 15, 2007 | 11:49 AM ET
CBC Arts
Oslo woke up Thursday morning to find the nude sculptures in a beloved park mysteriously censored with black paper bars.
Overnight, an unknown person or group covered up the breasts, genitals and buttocks of the statues decorating the city's Vigeland Sculpture Park.
Black bars were found Thursday morning censoring the nude scultptures in Oslo's Vigeland Sculpture Park.
(Haakon Mosvold Larsen/Scanpix/Associated Press)
A note left behind, purportedly to explain the action, criticized newspapers for showing too much nudity and said that this did not have to extend to the park as well. The note was signed F.M.N.H.
City workers rushed to remove the paper rectangles from the sculptures Thursday morning.
While some citizens viewed the incident as simply a prank, others said it was an act of vandalism that disrespected the artwork and the park — one of Norway's best-known tourist sites and a popular recreational space for locals.
Norwegian artist Gustav Vigeland, who died in 1943, spent the last two decades of his life creating the approximately 200 sculptures scattered throughout the park.
Following a general theme of the human condition, Vigeland created nude bronze or granite sculptures depicting people at all stages of life: from babies to seniors.
Among the best-known pieces are the massive monolith that features more than 100 people entwined and struggling to climb upwards and the furious child figure dubbed Sinnataggen.
