Art History and Visual Studies lecture series

In Norsk kunsthistorie (1927), one of the first Norwegian Art History textbooks, a “statuette of a Lapp”, i.e., of a Sámi, is praised for its realism: its “sympathetic naturalness” makes it resemble an “ethnographic illustration.”

The histories and legacies of colonial projects have become a topic of increasing debate in the field of art over the last years, disturbing the long-standing tradition for colonial negligence in the Nordic countries.

This talk explores what appears, what is lost, and what could be reimagined in the process of researching African and African-descendant people in the history of art.