The elephant in the room
By Helga-Marie Nordby, art scientist and curator
Two inflatable, gold-plated tanks of natural size fill the church room. One a copy of an American (M1A1) tank, the other a Russian (T90). Two of the world's superpowers economically and militarily floating front to front in the nave of the church; arms race, cold war, Trump versus Putin. The balloon tanks smell from power, capital and war, but also from the entertainment industry, celebration and party, use-and-throw. All together, this becomes both terrifying and seductive.
Balloons
From children's toys to the military industry, various forms filled with air have had their function in almost all segments of human life, including in the arts. We find examples of inflatable works of art dating back to the 19th century where hot air balloons were covered with colorful and imaginative patterns. But it was not until the 1960s that inflatable objects became "publicly owned" and used extensively in advertising, children's entertainment and as holiday decorations. It was also in the 1960s that pop artists Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg created their first air-filled artwork. Andy Warhol's installation "Silver Clouds" (1966) consists of a room filled with floating balloons in silver. They are filled with a mixture of air and helium so that they just lift off the ground, but not enough to hover under the roof. The light silver clouds float carefree around the room, bumping into each other and the audience visiting the exhibit. Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929) is best known for his oversized sculptures in public spaces of everyday objects such as a toothpaste statue, hamburger, sausage in bread or a lipstick. Many of his sculptures are also filled with air. As for the other pop artists, mass culture and consumerism were Oldenburg's main theme. Other well-known and recent examples of artists using air and balloons are Jeff Koons and Paul McCarthy. Koons began making his balloon artwork in the late 1970s when he experimented with readymades. Rabbits and flowers are common forms of his. Where Koons retains and plays on the sympathetic, sweet and frictionless in his sculptures, Paul McCarthy has advocated the dirty, shameful, and paradoxical of American culture. One of his most well-known inflatable works is simply a mega-huge bunch of beef, "Complex Shit" from 2007. One of several common denominators for these artists is that they comment on and criticize American culture in their work.
Chariots of war
Britain was the leader of the development of tanks during World War I. At that time, Winston Churchill was a Navy minister and set up the Landscape Committee to develop the new weapon. The first British chariot was used during the Battle of Somme in 1916, and by 1917 the French had developed their first chariot based on a tracked tractor. The chariot was instrumental in making the trench warfare unfashionable, and thousands of tanks used by British and French forces contributed to Allied victories. Since World War II, tanks have played a key role in the military, and today there are approx. 60,000 tanks in active service worldwide. Norway is now in the process of replacing its older tanks with modernized and high-tech tanks. Military technology has reached to a point where unmanned tanks, land drones are possible. The tank is today a kind of epitome of war and military struggle.
Gold
Gold was one of the first metals made by humans. Because it appeared in pure and natural form, it was easy to process and had a beautiful and durable appearance. Historians believe it was the Egyptians and Sumerians who discovered the gold about 7,000 years ago. In many cultures, the metal is considered to have magical powers and was therefore used as a religious symbol. For the church and royal power, gold was both a symbol and proof of their godly and worldly power. Gold has also generally been used as an economic value gauge on the status of both nations and individuals. Over the years gold has also been extensively used in artistic decoration. Like nothing else, gold represents the combination of power, wealth and beauty.
Power and powerlessness
The ambiguous installation in Jakob's Church created by Egyptian artist Mohamed El Masry is built around these three elements: balloon, tanks and gold. The work originally titled “Economy of Effort Pays the Price” is a harsh comment on the recklessness of capitalism. The balloon tanks in gold represent for El-Masry the entire industrial system, its associated economic policies and political conflicts that do not take into account humanity, and which in addition manipulate us to becoem market-controlled, passive consumers.
Economy of Effort Pays the Price was first created for an art festival in Beirut, but the work produced in China was stopped at the border and never reached the festival in time.
Jakob Church of Culture is an arena for all kinds of art expressions and a driving force for increased use of churches in general as an art space. This enables another type of dialogue and discourse in the church room. The Church of Culture wants to work with questions more than answers, addressing power structures, adopted truths and political agendas, as well as directing a critical search for social injustice and processes that strengthen the system and weaken the individual.
El-Masry's artwork is now installed in Jakob Church of Culture (Kulturkirken Jakob) and the exhibition has been titled Prayers - An exhibition about power and powerlessness. What happens when the air-filled, gold-plated war machines occupy a church room in Norway? What kind of questions arise, what is being addressed?
It is unavoidable that the pacifist message of the Church has had meager conditions in much of the Church's history. Since the church became the mainstream religion in the Roman Empire, the church has often supported the military adventures of the rulers without any contradictions. The church has also been the driving force behind a number of wars and violent struggles, just as often driven by "mammon" as by mission. War and capitalism go hand in hand, they are both about expansion and about gaining control of the market and funds.
The church is no longer a war mugger. Peace messages and humanity are fundamental. The Norwegian Church is today strongly involved in international peace work. Where the motto used to be "just war" is now talking about "just peace". Being an active peacemaker is perhaps the most important task of the church. The tanks in the nave of the church remind us and clarify this responsibility: The Church will be at the forefront of the struggle for peace and democracy in the world.
Norway considers itself a peace nation, we award the Nobel Peace Prize and are active in peace mediation. But we are also a member of NATO and we are involved in war actions in other ways: The ongoing civil war in Yemen has become the world's largest humanitarian disaster. 10,000 people have been killed since the bombing started in 2015. Around 22 million people (80% of the population) are in need of humanitarian aid and 3 million are on the run. Since the start of the war, Norway has exported weapons, military equipment and multi-purpose goods to the warring countries in Yemen for enormous profits. The government has stopped some of the exports, but still leaves the door open. Not only do we risk Norwegian material contributing to aggravating the war and humanitarian needs, we also express a real political support to the countries that are at war by selling them the world's most strategic and political commodity, namely war material. We make peace with one hand and "shoot" with the other. This seems to be Norway's great paradox and our "elephant in the room".
More than anything else, the Church of Culture's positioning of the balloon tanks is a clear criticism of Norway's weapons industry and our active role in today's wars and conflicts. Not as a peace broker, but as a war profiteer. In this way, Norway, like the United States and Russia, is one of the pillars of the ruthless capitalism that rules the world. The gold-plated tanks point their guns at us.