In from the cold: indigenous Sámi artists debut at the Venice Biennale
telegraph.co.ukPile o'Sápmi Supreme is a curtain of 400 reindeer skulls, each with a bullet hole in its forehead, and in both scale and bite, it is enough to make your hair stand on end.The piece is by the Sámi artist Máret Anne Sara, and was created in 2017 in protest against a government-enforced cull of reindeer belonging to indigenous Sámi herders that became a cause célèbre in Norway, pitting ancestral rights against environmental concerns that many dismissed as spurious.Positioning the work front and centre of a national institution, then - one that has taken eight years to build, merged five existing institutions and cost in the region of £550 million - will raise eyebrows when the museum opens in June. 'It will be a surprise, but I think a good one,' says Stina Högkvist , director of collections.Previously, she tells me, visitors to Oslo's National Gallery were greeted by a painting of the Norse explorer Leif Erikson 'discovering' America in the 11th century, by the 19th-century Norwegian Christian Krohg. 'But like museums everywhere, we have begun to be aware of what we have overlooked and why.
Even beyond the art world, I think people everywhere feel the change.'Outside, on Oslo's waterfront, it is a blustery day - the sky heavy and gull cries tearing the air.
You get the best view of it from the Light Hall, a much-feted 25,800sq ft exhibition space on the museum roof. Its inaugural show, I Call It Art, showcasing the best contemporary Norwegian art, will also, curator Randi Godø tells me, include several Sámi artists.The museum is not a lone soldier in its fight to amplify Sámi art.
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