Exhibitions
View past exhibitions @ Scandinavia House
Northern (L)attitudes: Norwegian and American Contemporary Art
Through September 19, 2009
FREE
A collection of photographs, paintings, videos and mixed media, this exhibition will celebrate the works of nine provocative contemporary artists (four American, five Norwegian) all of whom are American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) Fellowship recipients: Eric Aho, Marion Belanger, Lene Berg, Sandra Binion, Kjell Bjørgeengen, Ole Martin Lund Bø, Unn Fahlstrøm, Nina Katchadourian and Are Mokkelbost.
A transatlantic cross-pollination of concepts and mediums, Northern (L)attitudes explores how each country’s geography, environment and culture informs the work of the artist. The exhibition will highlight intersections of cultural exchange and how they occur.
As evident through their works, the American artists were clearly taken with Scandinavia’s flora and fauna, keenly observing and investigating its geography, climate, vegetation, and wildlife through paintings interpreting ice and forest, and photographs and video delineating landscape, rocks and animal behavior.
In contrast, the Norwegian artists are occupied with societal conventions and visceral intangibilities. During their time in the United States, these artists drew inspiration from politics, sound, and the visual rhetoric of power and color, among other things.
The exhibition is supported by the Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York.
Films
Nordic Noir: Crime Series – Varg Veum
July 8 through August 13
$9, $6 ASF Members
Scandinavia House continues with the ever-popular crime series, Varg Veum, featuring film adaptations of Norwegian writer Gunnar Staalesen’s crime novels. The contemporary thriller series about hard-boiled private investigator Varg Veum is distinguished by dark humor, sharp characterization and unremitting tension.
During the last two decades Gunnar Staalesen has published 13 Varg Veum novels and 2 collections of short stories, and has become a household name with the Norwegian crime audience. Publishers have recognized the fine talent for hard-boiled noir of the Norwegian writer, and his Varg Veum novels are now being published in 13 countries, among others Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, England and Italy. Staalesen has written more than 35 books and has received a number of prestigious Scandinavian awards. In 2004 Varg Veum was honored as the Norwegian crime hero of all time. Staalesen is known for his talent to create complex and exciting crime plots, and at the same time displaying a consciousness of the social injustices through his lone-wolf hero.
There are six films in the series and they will be screened on Wednesdays at 6:30 pm and again on Thursdays at 2:30 pm. The series starts on July 8 and runs through August 13.
Varg Veum – Bitter Flowers (Varg Veum – Bitre Blomster)
Wednesday, July 8, 6:30 pm & Thursday, July 9, 2:30 pm
Directed by Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen, 2007. Karsten Aslaksen, chief engineer of a large chemical company, disappears without trace. His married lover, a successful Christian politician named Vibeke Farang, approaches private investigator Varg Veum to trace him. Discreetly. Varg finds Karsten dead in a cabin in the woods. The police arrest Vibeke’s husband for the murder, but Varg is convinced they have the wrong man. He starts to investigate Aslaksen and the chemical plant where he worked, and uncovers a deadly international conspiracy in which the principals will stop at nothing to protect their interests.
Varg Veum – Sleeping Beauty (Varg Veum – Tornerose)
Wednesday, July 15, 6:30 pm & Thursday, July 16, 2:30 pm
Directed by Erik Richter Strand, 2008. Director of Photography: Johan Fredrik Bødtker. Production Design: Roger Rosenberg. Script: Lars Skorpen. Producers: Jonas Allen and Peter Bose. Music: Ginge. Cast: Trond Espen Seim, Bjørn Floberg, Endre Hellestveit, Kathrine Fagerland, Julie Rusti, Marianne Nielsen, Bjørn Willberg Andersen, Stig Ryste Amdam, Ågot Sendstad.
After extricating 17-year-old Lisa Halle from a life of prostitution in Copenhagen, private investigator Varg Veum becomes ensnared in a tangle of parental neglect and bad love when he is hired to locate her boyfriend, Peter Werner.
Varg finds him stabbed to death in a seedy hotel. As he strives to save Lisa from perdition and to find Peter’s killer, he is forced to confront the city’s most dangerous dope dealers.
Varg Veum – Yours until Death (Varg Veum – Din, til døden)
Wednesday, July 22, 6:30 pm & Thursday, July 23, 2:30 pm
Directed by Erik Richter Strand, 2008. Private eye Varg Veum is on a routine mission searching for his client Jonas Andresen’s stolen car. The car is found having been used in a brutal robbery and not long after that the client himself turns up dead. The cops’ prime suspect is the ex-wife Wenche, but Varg believes the case to be more complex. When the perpetrators end up dead one after the other, Varg soon begins to fear for the life of the beautiful widow.
Varg Veum – Fallen Angels (Varg Veum – Falne engler)
Wednesday, July 29, 6:30 pm & Thursday, July 30, 2:30 pm
Directed by Morten Tyldum, 2008. Jakob Aasen has hired his old friend private investigator Varg Veum to spy on his wife Rebecca, whom he suspects of infidelity. Against his better judgment Varg takes on the job, and in an ironic twist he and Rebecca rekindle their former love. Meanwhile a serial killer begins to target the members and families of Jakob’s band, and the second of his victims is Rebecca… In a race against time, Varg strives to halt the killer before he strikes again – and in the process he uncovers the dark secret behind the killings.
Varg Veum – Woman in the Fridge (Varg Veum – Kvinnen i kjøleskapet)
Wednesday, August 5, 6:30 pm & Thursday, August 6, 2:30 pm
Directed by Alexander Eik, 2008. An international oil drilling company hires private investigator Varg Veum to find their missing systems designer, Arne Samuelsen. Varg discovers the headless body of a woman jammed into the fridge in Arne’s apartment – and is promptly knocked unconscious. When he wakes up the body is missing. Varg has to clear his name and confront a ruthless extortionist in a maze of deception and sexual ambiguity.
Varg Veum – Buried Dogs (Varg Veum – Begravde Hunder)
Wednesday, August 12, 6:30 pm & Thursday, August 13, 2:30 pm
Directed by Alexander Eik, 2008. Racial tension is running high in Bergen after a young black asylum seeker dies at the hands of the police. Shortly afterwards, a right-wing politician is targeted by a gunman at a public rally, and his wife is fatally wounded. The Party is about to hold a leadership election. One of the candidates, Marit Holm, comes to private investigator Varg Veum, insisting she is being stalked. Varg is drawn into a web of conspiracy and betrayal at the heart of the political establishment, in which spin doctors and political players will do anything to achieve their ends.
ASF members only may reserve film tickets by calling (212) 847-9746
Special Film Screening
Flame & Citron (Flammen & Citronen)
Tuesday, July 28, 7pm
$9 ($6 ASF members)
Directed by Ole Christian Madsen, 2008. Flame & Citron, based on true events, tells the story of two heroes of the Danish resistance to the Nazi occupation, but it is far from your typical World War II period piece. Instead, it plays like some unholy, brilliant marriage between spy noir and comic book movie. The Danish population hopes for a swift end to the war, freedom fighters Bent Faurschou-Hviid, alias Flame (Thure Lindhardt) and Jørgen Haagen Schmith, alias Citron (Mads Mikkelsen), secretly put their lives at stake fighting for the Resistance. When their immediate superior, Aksel Winther, orders them into action against two German Abwehr officers, events start to get out of hand. Flame confronts the talented and intelligent Colonel Gilbert (Hanns Zischler) and for the first time hesitates to carry out his orders to kill. Something feels terribly wrong.
While their doubts gnaw at them, Flame and Citron come to feel that they are on shaky ground. Desperate, disillusioned and with a sense of having been betrayed by their superiors, they decide only to trust each other and concentrate their efforts on getting to the much hated and feared chief of the Gestapo, Hoffmann (Christian Berkel).
Filled to the brim with assassination plots, double-crosses, larger-than-life villains, and big, dramatic gestures, this is not for viewers who like their movies timid and sedate. And under that grand façade, the film grapples with tough moral questions regarding war, occupation, survival, and ideology. 130 min.
Dinner & A Movie @ Scandinavia House
Ongoing, 5-10 pm
$30 per person ($26 ASF Members)
Pairing top-notch Scandinavian cinema with fine Nordic cuisine, Smörgås Chef Restaurant @ Scandinavia House introduces a “Dinner & A Movie” three-course prix fixe dinner menu. Available from 5-10 pm, this ongoing offer features a selection of favorite dishes including herb-roasted chicken, cured gravlaks and Swedish meatballs, and includes one admission to that evening’s film screening.
For more information, please call Smörgås Chef at Scandinavia House at (212) 847-9745.
Summer Jazz
Thursday’s at 6:30 pm
$10 ($8 members)
As the Manhattan skyline slips into magic hour, sip a sumptuous cocktail while enjoying an intimate concert held on Scandinavia House’s garden terrace. A favored alternative to the usual midtown “happy hour,” Jazz House presents an eclectic selection of Nordic ensembles and repertoires accompanied by refreshments from Smörgås Chef’s terrace cocktail bar.
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July 9 - TESLA (Sweden)
July 16 - Jostein Gulbrandsen (Norway)
July 23 - Björn Thoroddsen (Iceland)
July 30 - Tine Bruhn (Denmark)Kids & Families
For children’s program reservations, the public may call (212) 847-9740.
The Myths & Magic of Iceland: A Voyage through Icelandic Children's Literature
Saturday, 12-5 pm, $5 per child admission includes access to both spaces, (FREE for ASF members). Open to ASF members on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, 12-5 pm, FREE.
Travel to an enchanted landscape of glaciers, volcanoes, magical creatures, and spellbinding stories! This fall Scandinavia House's annual celebration of Nordic children's literature spotlights Iceland, an island nation with a unique culture and a rich trove of vibrant folk traditions and fairy tales. From the ancient sagas chronicling exciting Viking adventures, to folk tales passed from generation to generation, to brand new stories by contemporary authors, The Myths & Magic of Iceland presents a broad range of children's literature in a fun, colorful play space.
Icelandic literature reflects the closeness of man and nature, and The Myths & Magic of Iceland evokes the stunning, otherworldly Icelandic landscape with its violent volcanoes, majestic glaciers, and wide open spaces covered with moss and lava. Kids will encounter hardy Icelandic sheep, seals on icebergs, and lovable puffins perched on rocks. And if they look carefully, they may find elves and magical huldufolk (hidden people). Perhaps those strange-looking rocks are trolls that stayed out too long! Children can read and listen to recorded stories in a cozy rustic turf cottage and a glittering ice cave. A mini-stage modeled after Thingvellir (“parliament plains”)—the most important place in Iceland's history, where one of the oldest parliaments in the world was founded in the year 930—makes a great place to dress up in costumes and play! The Myths & Magic of Iceland is designed and created by artist Sarah Edkins.
Support for The Myths & Magic of Iceland is provided by Monika A. Heimbold/The Heimbold Foundation, Glitnir, Hrafnhildur and Kristján T. Ragnarsson, and the Icelandic Cultural Fund of The American-Scandinavian Foundation.
Heimbold Family Children’s Center
Scandinavia House features regular programs for children and families in the Heimbold Family Children's Center, a colorful, welcoming environment where children and their caregivers can learn about the history and culture of Scandinavia through books, toys, workshops, and storytelling.
Open to ASF members only Tuesday-Friday, 12-5 pm. FREE
Open to the public Saturday, 12-5 pm. $5 per child (FREE to ASF members) includes admission to both the Heimbold Family Children's Center and The Myths & Magic of Iceland.