The 18th Inferno Metal Festival in Oslo 2018 offered legends of Norwegian black metal bands as well as cultural excursions. For the first time, festival participants could enjoy a guided tour to the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s sites in Oslo.
Black metal fans are a cultural bunch of people, not only interested in metal bands like Satyricon and Napalm Death. Proof was the about 20 participants joining the guided tour offered by Northway – unique tours of Norway.
One of the guests, Åsmund Djupang from Norway had never been to the National Gallery in Oslo before. Now he could learn from Edvard Munch specialist and co-owner of Northway, Silvia Leine, about Munch’s life and art in the Edvard Munch room, containing world famous paintings like the Scream, Madonna and Girls on the Bridge.
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The Norwegian black metallers, the Satyricon, featured a drawing by Edvard Munch as their latest album’s macabre cover artwork. “I like it,” said Åsmund Djupang, “but I have heard that several black metal fans don’t like it,” he adds.
The excursion began at Edvard Munch’s first home in Oslo, in which he lived from the age 5 to 12, and ended at the Ekeberg Park. It was in fact in conjunction with a walk at Ekeberg that Edvard Munch had the experience which led to the world-famous painting and icon The Scream. The Munch Spot is the place where one of the world’s most influential artists, Marina Abramovic, paid homage to Munch with her interactive performance in 2013.
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A total of 270 Oslo residents participated in what is now immortalized on both film and photo. Today, visitors can see a modern version of the view of the city and the fjord which the artist immortalized as the backdrop for the angst-ridden figure in the painting.
Festival participant Joseph Aprill from Los Angeles visited the festival for the first time. “I am interested in Scandinavian Black Metal,” he says. “I have been to London, Stockholm and Bergen before to enjoy the genre.” He tells us that he has inherited the interest for finer arts from his parents and aims to visit at least one art gallery on his black metal. In addition to the Munch excursion, he had been to the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.
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Both he and Pawel Dzjepak from Poland agree that Inferno Festival offers a good mix of bands, nice sound and a few positive surprises. For them the highlights were the bands Wiegedood from Belgium and Emperor from Norway.
Northway is a Norwegian travel agency, specializing in small tailor made guided tours (maximum 20 people). Its task is to organize memorable travel experiences for private travelers as well as businesses. The tours are tailor-made according to requirements. A representative from Northway will gladly accompany during the entire tours to ensure quality assurance.
“The huge interest for Edvard Munch’s art during the later years has enticed us to cooperate with some of the foremost specialists on the artist,” says Silvia Leine, looking forward to the opening of the new Edvard Munch museum in Oslo in 2020. The contours of the twelve-story tall new building drawn by the Spanish architect Juan Herreros, is clearly visible from the Ekeberg Park.
Black Metal Meets Edvard Munch in Oslo, written by Tor Kjolberg
All photos: Tor Kjolberg