The Norwegian Lorck Schive Art Award

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The sleepy town of Trondheim in Norway, with a population og less than 200,000 people houses an art museum called the Trondheim Kunstmuseum. In 1878, a year before his death, a local wealthy landowner, Christian Lorck Schive, established a trust, the Norwegian Lorck Schive art award, that decreed a percentage of all rental income from his local properties to support artists, centered around the local museum. He was said to own around 30% of the town.

The area owned by the trust is known as Bakklandet, on the east bank of the river Nidelva that runs through the center of Trondheim. Today, the area is home to sundry cafes, restaurants, craft shops and the like. Part of the rent funds the Lock Schive prize every second year.

The Norwegian Lorck Schive Art Award
Christian Lorch Schive

Norway’s biggest art award
The Lorck Schive art prize is Norways biggest art award. At NOK 500,000 (£38,000) it’s comparable to the UK’s Turner Prize. In 2015, Vanessa Baird was announced the winner of the Lorck Schive art prize.

In 2017, Vibeke Tandberg was the recipient of the prize, and this year, Eline Mugaas receives the Lorck Schive art award. Mugaas has, together with artist Elise Storsveen, since 2008 published the fanzine ALBUM. ALBUM is comprised of ubiquitous images culled from Scandinavian etiquette manuals, cookbooks, travel magazines, craft books, fashion magazines, and sex guides.

The Norwegian Lorck Schive Art Award
Eline Mugaas

The Norwegian Lorck Schive Art Award 2019
Mugaas has researched extensively on Norwegian artist Siri Anker Aurdal (b 1937) and thereby brought visibility to a body of work that had largely disappeared from art history. Currently, Mugaas is working on issue two of a series of five visual essays under the title Dyslexic Times.

This year’s committee has consisted of Heidi Ballet, an independent curator based in Berlin and Brussels; Per Formo, an artist who studied in Trondheim; and Maria Lind, a curator, writer and educator from Stockholm. Together they had the arduous task of whittling down four nominees to one winner.

Related: Wonderland in Trondheim

The Norwegian Lorck Schive Art Award
Trondheim kunstmuseum

Trondheim Kunstmuseum
Trondheim Kunstmuseum houses today a national collection of both modern and contemporary art that is almost 150 years old and provides great insight into the history of the country’s cultural legacy. The paintings by great artists, little known past the country’s borders, display scenes full of domestic interiors and gloomy weather.

Trondheim, which was once the medieval capital of Norway, has now cemented its place as Norway’s second city of art. The Lock Schive Prize at Trondheim Kunstmuseum is on show until 19 January 2020.

The Norwegian Lock Schive Art Award, written by Tor Kjolberg

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Journalist, PR and marketing consultant Tor Kjolberg has several degrees in marketing management. He started out as a marketing manager in Scandinavian companies and his last engagement before going solo was as director in one of Norway’s largest corporations. Tor realized early on that writing engaging stories was more efficient and far cheaper than paying for ads. He wrote hundreds of articles on products and services offered by the companies he worked for. Thus, he was attuned to the fact that storytelling was his passion.