Rainer Fetting Berlin. 15.04.-12.09.2011, Berlinische Gallerie Landesmuseum Für Moderne Kunst, Fotographie und Architektur. Alte Jakobstraße 124-128.

Rainer Fetting Berlin. 15.04.-12.09.2011, Berlinische Gallerie Landesmuseum Für Moderne Kunst, Fotographie und Architektur. Alte Jakobstraße 124-128. 10969 Berlin. DE, By craniv boyd.

 

 Behold! For, I am the accomplishments of an artist explorer! Seem to sing the paintings of, living German Expressionist painter, Rainer Fetting.  Large Format Acrylic, dispersion and Tempera expressionist paintings of content that is out-ly, blatantly vibrantly, almost, dare I write, militantly, homo erotic, paintings and prints on view at a National Museum, for Modern Art, cannot really be said to sing. Art objects, when existent as, pigments on canvass are silent, however the contents of Rainer Fetting's oeuvre displayed, are loud, as loud can get, for past modern painting.

 

View of the Berg's and view of a young man's all bare back:

 

A work titled I find you sexy, (authors translation), is a vertically oriented tableaux, which places on view a posing male nude, in harsh black contour lines that would be at home, let us say in a, Neo Gothic, Max Beckmann painting.  Naked dude has one arm stretched over his, neatly cut, short head of brown hair; he contemplates a vista of the Swiss Alps, or a Mountain range. The work is painted and is introduced to the public within the frame of this retrospective exhibition of a Berlin based painter, of the caliber of the young wilds. It is not without uncertainty that I view the painting I find you sexy, that shares a wall with the Male bathhouse content answer to Henri Matisse's eternal dance, motif. Observing the painting wonders if it is painted of a man standing in a Berliner Zimmer with a large poster of the Alps, or if it is rather made, created, inspired recovering after a dirty weekend in somebody's Châtlet. With that aside the connexion between the angular chiseled beauty of geological formations, remnants of the last ice age, and the musculature of the standing man, is formed by Fetting's brush with his application of a strong electric blue. In both the nocturnal sky, the back of the man, the stones of the expressionistic painted, mountains.    

 

 

CBGB's OMFUG, dilemma:

 

If you have not bathed in the sonic haze of the now gone baby gone, legendary, birthplaces of the punk rock and new wave youth movements on the Bowery, in Manhattan, than perhaps your understanding and empathy for, Fettings series Guitarist and Drummer, will be severely impaired. I for one hope not, the paintings are a superior quality meditation on syncopation in fast pasted emotional music; one is placed between the ears of a rock and roll drummer on stage, his fragmentary view of the lead guitarist. Fetting was there in the "scene" what ever that was when bands like the Ramones or the New York Dolls were playing there. This series is a painted record, a testament to the nascence of the Punk rock scene in New York City in the late 1970's and the early 1980's. How will a viewer feel when looking at an artwork about a sub culture rock and roll concert, when they have not been to such a kind of space?  Rainer Fetting does a great service to the raw energy that was in CBGB's, via his means of brilliant application of color.

 

Yo la Reyñia:

 

The art historical reference and the appreciation of the great master court painters of the baroque era, namely, Velázquez is both subverted, and supported brilliantly, Fetting paints a full-length portrait of himself, in Drag as the Infanta of Spain. The painting is lushly framed in a campy way, evocative of the popular presentation method of a Rembrandt or a Hals.  The strange thick and heavy paint application, as well as Fetting's bizarre color choice begs the question, just how serious about your love for the 17^th century Spanish master painter are you Mr. Fetting?  Yet the fun, large scale grappling with the cultural treasures, images, of the European powers that be as it were, is a tough and lively approach on how to make a self portrait as a painter living in Europe, while the Berlin wall is still up.

 

Color blind:

 

The exhibition is titled: Fetting Berlin, and in many ways the museum personnel are correct, in their basic, two-word-only, titling of the retrospective survey of a protean German expressionist painter. This exhibition is Berlin as seen by Rainer Fetting, it is as much Fetting as it is the divided city, Berlin, of the times when Fetting was living in that city, when the wall vanished or visa versa. The colors of the paintings are down right sexy, ample, many colors of the rainbow, and when used in fast paced, wet on wet painting, in the hands of Rainer Fetting, for city-scape's of a traumatized, amputated Urban landscape, you can truly feel the atmosphere that inspired David Bowie's song Heroes.  Drawings of the wall, painted by an artist who was standing by the wall, paintings of the Iron Curtain in its most concrete manifestation, in colors that look hallucinogenic, yet at the same time all too believable, wall jumpers and self-portraits, in the Germanic, melancholic tradition dating back to the gloomy painter print maker, from Nüremberg, A. Dürrer, this of self portrait with the wall. The Berlin wall, of 1977, the year of the date when the painting, was made, looks grey and depressing and the young artist depicted in vibrant colors forced into grey scale looks depressed as well.  By craniv boyd.

Lajos Kassák- Botschafter der Avantgarde 1915-1927. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum Für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architectur, Alte Jakobstraße 1

Lajos Kassák- Botschafter der Avantgarde 1915-1927. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum Für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architectur, Alte Jakobstraße 124-128, Berlin 10969. DE, by craniv boyd.

 

         Seeing works of a modern artist from Hungary, active at the time when, modern-ism and the isms where at their acme in Europe, is a rarity and a privilege. Lajos Kassák, and selected art, design and pamphleteering, work from the time frame of 1915-1927, is the subject of a modest gem of a retrospective exhibition at Berlinische Galerie.

 

         Cigarette propaganda, that contains the 19^th century art neveaux, naturalistic looking, cigarette smoker with the 20^th century supremacist, avant gaurdisitic geometric looking, smoker (think Pac-man) is in the same room as works by the French, sometimes surrealist, Francis Picabia and Dutchman Theo van Doesburg, of De Stijl. The fact that the retrospective of a messenger of the European avant-gardes active in Hungary helps to posit and teach that many European artists at the time, early twentieth century were in fact speaking the same formalist language.

 

Assorted ephemera are gathered behind flat display cases, and one needs only look to the, larger, more bombastic solo exhibition of a Canadian Artist living and working in Berlin now, out side in the Foyer or Entrée salle of Berlinisches Galerie, today to see the lasting power of, modernist type- and graphic design that, Hungarian: Lajos Kassák, and like proponents of a new style, like De Stijl. What is so striking is that the objects small political leaflets and manifestos with thrilling and new letter forms beyond rationalism, have a look both vintage and with the anything goes nature of graphic design today: neutral.

 

What, happens to the avantgaurdistic and socialist Utopian, content of a san-serif type authored by a Dutch modernist becomes the visual identity, for a prominent museum for American art, such as, the Whitney Museum for American Art in New York City?  Does san serif type still look communistic or rationalized fractur or black letter of 1930's, vintage look fascistic?

 

It is surprising to see the quiet presence and inspirational quality of lesser known, at least in central and western Europe, avant gaurdist artists form Hungary, and their continued relevance on art made today. By craniv boyd. 

Romero Britto Best Buddies Friendship Bear 2011. Dedicated to the city of Berlin by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in honor of People with intellectual disabi

Romero Britto Best Buddies Friendship Bear 2011. Dedicated to the city of Berlin by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in honor of People with intellectual disabilities who inspire their communities worldwide. Corner of Hedwigwachenheim Straße & Mühlen Straße, Berlin. By craniv boyd.

 

A candy colored specter watches over the remnants of the east wall of the Berlin wall. Large, weatherproof, enamel encased, sealed metal teddy bear on a pedestal, by Brazilian born, but as of late more Miami based artist, Romero Britto. The big bear statue has a colorful Siamese twin heart, one of glittering gold, the other of barbershop stripped pink and red. Fellow American post pop artist, with warehouse sized art fabrication facilities, Jeff Koons, and his ten ton seated Scottish terrier, made of potted plants, can go eat their hearts out. Because this large steel bear, Best Buddies Friendship Bear, may as, a work of sculpture, be employed to carry out site specific healing, a higher calling than: oh wow really big lap dog made out of flowers. As such the bright colored Metal Teddy evokes an emotional response that is altruistic, lavish and unexpected.

 

            The bear is a patchwork of bright patterns and of those patters, Romero Britto, has selected symbols from the heady fields of math and science, a brown and gold area, sports the symbol p, other shape accompany it but it's Greek to me, no worries, the playful setting of the symbols is approachable and not intimidating. The Bear is so bright and rich in patterns that it looks, akin to the mural covered East Side Gallery, which it faces. Yet the luster of the coat of paint on it speaks of factory finish, and large, prominent politicized art in the public arena, or more simple, urban fabric. It brightens up a rainy Berlin day near the former wall, just as well, as its candy chemical patina sings on a sunny day. 

 

If you are the type of person to weep at an inspiring R. Zemeckies film like Forrest Gump, (1997), then more likely than not the dedication, and Best Buddies Friendship Bear, as an artwork will touch you, rather than strike the chord of bad taste and terrifying Kitsch, that Romero Britto's work has the feeling of when viewed, in alternate art fair environs providing for an up close and personal in bulk, experience. One big metal bear for Berlin, one small step towards respecting and appreciating people with intellectual disabilities. A work of art in a high tourist traffic area near a shiny new multi-use stadium, is a light hearted awareness raising gesture to people with intellectual disabilities and or different ways of learning, who have to surmount those personal, setbacks and societal cultural ignorance for their tribulations. By craniv boyd. 

Labor Gruppenausstellung 22.june- 20 August 2011. Katie Armstrong; Birgit Dieker, Stephanie Kiwitt, Ryan Mosley, Luise Schröder. Galerie EIGEN+ART, Au

Labor Gruppenausstellung 22.june- 20 August 2011. Katie Armstrong; Birgit Dieker, Stephanie Kiwitt, Ryan Mosley, Luise Schröder. Galerie EIGEN+ART, Auguststraße 26. Berlin 101117. DE, by craniv boyd.

 

This summer a group exhibition, in central Berlin city, of younger artists who, are still in art academies, of one sort, or another. Merits to be found in a "high street" tier, or trendy, Gallery that still bets on the younger caretakers of the muse. The art made by, the five artists, the art dealers at the Berlin out-post of, Galerie EIGEN+ART, have selected is the major redeeming factor of what is disaster-ridden ground of summer group exhibition at an art gallery.

 

Katie Armstrong, a young American artist, has made an animation, a video sequence, a time based media loop that when displayed on a flat screen, facing an opposite wall with a grid of pencil drawings on index card sized sheets of paper, (A7 or A5) pages small enough to be lifted out of a sketchbook, is a work that looks familiar. The video monitor has one set of headphones for hearing what the sound of the video is, and boy oh, boy does this video need the soundtrack. The delay comes with seeing a pencil drawn, animation that since Pixar and computer generated graphic imaging is delegated to a realm of, and "purposeless" labor intensity. The hand drawn, animations of a lone end of adolescence Caucasian woman, is underscored and enhanced by the sound of slow A-Capella singing of a song eerily familiar. The slow, sensitive, emotive words, sung harmonically, with polyphony, of the same voice, generated in a do it your self recording studio, emerge with time, from a dim familiarity and the over synthesized, Hit me Baby One More Time of Britney Spears, becomes something all together different and more humane in the version of loneliness that is "killing" Katie Armstrong, which accompanies her video, about heart ache. Love, and its many plights are the subject of Britney Spears's bubblegum pop, smash hit song, the indelible mark it left on the hearts and minds of youngsters is palpable in Katie Armstrong's elegy to both Britney, heart ache and the hand made drawing, in service of animation.

 

Birgit Dieker hacks her way, cutting into new heights of sculpture. A delicately framed figure is seated, legs crossed, on a bar stool in the first room of the gallery, the figure has a large beehive style hairstyle, and is covered in ornate gold sequins. The ends of the limbs where hands feet and digits would be are black stumps the back of the figure is slashed open and the decadence of the gold when set against the black carved cloth calls to mind charred remains. Begs the question did they have disco back in the heyday of Pompeii?  Another artwork, by Birgit Dieker, that hangs mobile over the staircase, in the gallery space, is more transparent in the means behind its creation. An ovoid form is cut open and layers of textile, molded around a ball form are peeled back. For a strange hatching experience. 

 

 

Other artistic positions exemplified in the group exhibition titled LABOR, are that of the Meta work, or showing boredom and malaise with current events. Luise Schröder, and her video, of a, German Local Television news crew, on location about to record, is dry fare, as are black and white photographs of: the platforms for consumer culture and the sites for purchasing, quotidian items like climate control apparatuses, dryer still when printed out at roughly three by two yards and on mat ink jet printer paper.  The photographs by Stephanie Kiwitt are understated despite their large format, and in the absence of color and the just so, no set dressing whatsoever of the photo shoot, Stephanie Kiwitt, like her fellow country woman, Luise Schröder, is represented in the exhibition by art that resolutely contends within the cannon of clear-cut artwork fighting not to have the look of art. By craniv boyd.

T+T transferNet: Virtuelle Mauer Re-con Structing the Wall. Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin. DE, By craniv boyd.

T+T transferNet: Virtuelle Mauer Re-con Structing the Wall. Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin. DE, By craniv boyd.

 

Perchance, at long last, there may be a market for a video game that is, about escaping from the iron curtain, the Long Way Back 2010 a movie produced by the Polish Film institute about a heroic long walk, undertaken by a handful of escapees, out of a Gulag in northern Siberia, could be an indicator for popular demand for such a gaming experience. The Artist Team T+T transferNet, whose key figures are, Tamiko Theil and Thereasa Reuter, have made, a three dimensional world of where the Berlin Wall was, in a cloyingly small, section between, Kreuzberg and Mitte, where the death strip and east wall and west wall was. One hopes for a more complete version, of the project, one day placed in a National Historical Museum, in Germany.

 

The art work, as a virtual reality art work, has many merits, being that it seeks to provide people of today, who know how to maneuver a joy stick on a video game console, the experience of walking through East Berlin, near Heinrich Heine Platz yet as an artwork on public view, Virtuelle Mauer Re-con Structing the Wall, is unfortunately buggy. 

 

The key concept, of a Berlin then, or a walking tour around the borders of Warsaw pact nations with out the proper documentation to leave, the bloc, is great, I for one, hope that it could be a video game, one day, with similar memorial and pedagogical portent as Virtuelle Mauer Re-con Structing the Wall takes to task.

 

The location of the virtual reality world that was sadly an all to recent reality for many living in East Berlin, is situated in the places where today's children walking about in Berlin can pass un-hampered, that it makes apparent what, part of the experience it was to be in a city, occupied by the peoples army of the German Democratic Republic, despite the current state of the project, it nevertheless induces a powerful feeling of empathy for those people who were living in East Berlin who were told at one time or another, when they got close to the wall, I paraphrase, the historically accurate script of the VR east German Border trooper, "No, with those Papers, you cannot cross the border, please leave the protective zone peaceably or else…".

 

I learned something, and had a laugh of relief, maneuvering about in this virtual Berlin wall reconstruction.   By craniv boyd. 

East side Gallery, Mühlen Straße, Berlin Friedrichshain. DE, by craniv boyd.

East side Gallery, Mühlen Straße, Berlin Friedrichshain. DE, by craniv boyd.

 

East side Gallery as an exhibition platform, is evocative of the most antithetical sentiment to those expressed by the shimmering steel wording Upper East Side Berlin some where on Friedrichstraße in center city Berlin.  Platform, as a term, is perhaps inadequate to describe the state supported; just as much the, tourist haven, as the corner of Fredrichstraße and Unter den Linden, but for other, and hopefully more profound, reasons, East side Gallery, of Mühlen Straße, in Friedrichshain. Platform as adjective, is not enough, simply because this gallery on the east side is just a wall. But that concrete and asbestos, wall now covered, in vibrant paints, is the wall, of Berlin: part of what remains intact of it, at least.

 

On that section of the late, iron curtain that the East Berliners could not, and were definitely barred, from approaching, defacing or vaulting. Seeing East side Gallery, on the anniversary year of: fifty years, after the wall went up, and just over twenty years, since it came down is, a cathartic experience, if there ever was one. People who are passing through Berlin stop, take pause, and more often than not, take a picture with them and that Berlin wall, or the wall only, comme-ça.

 

The task of my small report, is to write about nine, of the individual paintings, by individual international artists, the world over, painted, custom fit at is were, and site specifically, for the East side Gallery, in Friedrichshain back in 1990. Tailor made, if you will, for the cultural climate of Germany reunifying.

 

i

A mural that was painted with the intention of healing some deep wounds, two national flags superimposed on over the other, German Federal Republic, and Israel, the blue star of David and the two blue bands are on top, layered over the Black Gold Red of Germany's current national Flag. As painting it is simple, as a healing concept, or a dream for healing, Gunter Schæfer, with this mural lays claim to a title of artist hoping for peace in the world. The strength within the simplicity, in this large image speaks volumes.

 

ii

 

Гoспoди! Помоги Мне выжить средиэтой смретнойаюбвц! Reads the title of a realist mural of two older gentlemen kissing. Copied after a photograph the mural, by artist Dimitri Vrubel, is an powerful image of two Russian men overwhelmed with love is fun painting: strange, odd, and healing. The thick eyeglasses frames, that one man wears in this monumental kiss, painted, at the  size of a small drive trough movie theatre, are back in Vogue some how, and the seriousness of the fall of the soviet union and end of cold war era is treated light heartedly by the artist Dimitri Vrubel.

 

 

iii

 

A kind of simple geometric abstraction that looks naïve in his restricted choice of local color, artist, Gábor Simon, and a painting title Space Magik, is a throwback to an era when teenagers had to more often than not leave the go to arcades instead of reach into their own pocket for a smart mobile telephone to play a video game. The hues of red black white grey and yellow are all play fully arraigned into a painting that looks both like optical at, and advertisement of a new version of space invaders. 

 

iv

 

Kosmopolitanism, a futuristic turn of phrase embedded amidst decorative faces people depicted who are mythical looking, Schamil Gimajew, and artist from central Asia, has painted one of the most elaborate, cluttered looking, and fun to be around sections of the wall. The trauma of the east west divide the Utopian hope of worlds beyond freezing conflicts is all there to see, and be overwhelmed by in a mural that is predominantly black white with dashes of primary colors, after the wall fell who can be afraid of red, yellow or blue?

 

v

 

Rats in a maze, grayed out humans in a labyrinth, blindfolded cube-heads with, twisted rubbery necks, sausages and meatballs and spaghetti, skewered on the cutlery that protrudes from the crowns of their box-heads, on bodies wearing bespoke evening dress, a floating blob-like creature with large baby blue eyes and red, open soda cans, a gas nozzle, held by a white hand from above, pump, like the one for your automotive vehicle, drips, drops of oil into a soda can in the free floating monstrosity with sensitive irises. All this, are images to be seen in the panel by the Chilean painter, César Ochaga. The work is overripe with a wealth of imagery, and the illustrations of the ideologies possessed by capitalism and communism are just there like too many buoyant facts, César Ochaga, painted a picture that looks like beat poetry.

 

 

vi

 

             A tribute, to a modernist painter who had a rough time of having some of his artwork shown to a German public, Willi Berger, paints on the wall a sketch for a rayonist, stained glass Church window, in red yellow and blue, inspired by musical works of the most well known eastern German, J.S. Bach. The schematic for the stained glass window, in question is by his mæstro, an artist who was censored by the double whammy of Hitler regime followed up by, German Democratic Republic.  The work is presented and as with much art that has been censored by authoritarian governments, people wonder why block this? Willi Berger calls forth, in his mural dedicated to the memory of one of his own influential art teachers, that censorship in the arts should never, ever, be permitted again.

 

vii

 

Distopia and its serious discontents, Ana Leonor Rodrigues, an artist from the less, land massive nation on Iberian peninsula, Portugal, paints a nocturne of a grouping of people in protective clothing wearing gas masks walking and seated in a black desert.  This nightmare vision calls to mind the planet that David Bowie left behind when he fell to earth back in the mid 1970's, when he stared in that psychedelic science fiction film. It's the environment, stupid! Could almost be a sub heading or alternate title for this work that portrays a group of survivors in a wasted-land, of a Nuclear Holocaust. An event that did not transpire which was un-doubted feared throughout the interim of the cold war.

 

viii

 

A large bald headed naked man, disrobed totally with the exception of a pair of shoes that look suspiciously like doctor martins, grips his head and falls back into a flaming pit of hellish bright worry, this lone male falling figure is contrasted with dull as dirt wearing shapeless ashen grey clothing of cubist looking people corralled like a rat heard, in a maze with out cheese. The maze rat association is underscored furthermore, by artist Ulricke Zoft, author of this mural, present's art that could be interpreted as a dypthic, to illustrate symptoms of ideologies of the supposed belligerents in the cold war. Individual existentialist worry of a naked unabashed capitalist pitted against, an oppressive looking rat race with no rewards like communism. With the people of the maze who are lucky enough to metamorphosed into a free flying cubist rat that could send a shiver down the spine of Pablo Picasso.

 

ix

 

The east side of the Berlin wall was, in its later years, during the life of the German Democratic Republic, painted, grey with white evenly spaced rectangles.  Schwartze Deutsche Lesbe, literally Black German lesbian is an artwork painted to look like the wall is still there yet only the eyes have been fooled and a deep to mid, mustard yellow, shroud bearing, a black naked woman with closely cropped hair. She looks like a Virtuvian man, she holds the same pose, but has only one pair of martyr legs spread eagle. The painting like the majority of the other murals on East Side Gallery were painted and repainted by artists who dedicated their paintings to someone some cause some ideal. Schwartze Deutsche Lesbe, as a, mural with idealist import a public work of art, dedicated, like the majority of the art at East side Gallery, to common lofty ideas and people who have at times, borne the brunt of aggressive, authoritarian un-free cultures, is a public art work, protected to an extent by the Bundesrepublik Deutschland, for people, who visit the Hauptstaat, to see and today's inebriated young near Warschawer Street to do what they do, with many of the other public surfaces in Berlin, observe appreciate respect or deface. By craniv boyd. 

Hus Mit Navn. Untitled: Yellow Black wall paint, at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/ Bethanien. Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin. DE, By craniv boyd.

Hus Mit Navn. Untitled: Yellow Black wall paint, at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/ Bethanien. Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin. DE, By craniv boyd.

 

A child goes to school, for a violin lesson, or a guitar lesson. That youth walks down a hall, which was built with the intention, of being a house to save the lives of children. That wide hallway has a new coat of paint. One more layer of pigments in a long continuum, of the buildings life. A child, walking today, on the ground floor of the large brick building with the address on Mariannenplatz Two, the building that is home to Kunstraum Kreuzberg/ Bethanien, would see a goofy, tour du force, by the Danish artist, a painter who adopts the artist moniker of Hus Mit Navn or, in the English language, what’s my name?

 

If Matt Groening, the author, of the Simpsons, or Ren & Stimpy, of Nickelodeon fame, were given a chance, to shine on the walls of a wing in a Cathedral, or another large space of learning, or convalescence, then you would have some thing similar to the funny looking, and joyous wall paintings featuring bizarre characters that, Hus Mit Navn, has painted in a wing of a former children’s hospital. The walls are in the bright optimistic process yellow of a post it notes. The use of the black paint, extended to it’s limits, of grey, to create and image characters, archetypical such as: the wounded lion, the acrobatic & clever mouse, the worrying and run-away pencil, the mean looking yet vulnerable, nose bleeder, the diamond shaped strong man, the dancing woman, all fallible contradictory types that in their nonchalance eek out a smile from, the corners of the most down cast pessimist’s mouth. 

 

The high contrast Spartan usage of color, binary style, just like in computing, on or off, black or yellow, with the vision of Hus Mit Navn, provides, a walk down a hall peopled by big, odd freaks each with their own individuated wall space between portals set at regular intervals. Its fun to look at and the dude wearing a baseball cap, sports shirt, with really long wavy rubber band arms takes up more space, he cant help poking the eye of a crouching lion.

 

The super upside-down mouse doing yoga is bare bottomed. The creature’s posterior, is where the head of a normal standing figure should be, and mouse or no, mouse; the beast, has long legs that jut outwards, creating an upside-down L form, Г.  Just for finesse and punctuation the smiling acrobatic mouse character has a bad case of wet gas, a dark black mushroom cloud that could appear to some, like a heart shape, hovers over the butt. Smelly.

 

The comical large scale frieze by this younger Danish talent, who also has a more,  colorful work, (more  from the rainbow, than just black and yellow) painted on the entirety of a five story Berlin Kreuzberg walk up firewall painted with a weirdo walking and speaking with a white speech bubble « Hus Mit Navn” is funny to a point, goofy and awkward and friendly as it may appear in the skill, manor of execution, the wall paintings inside the former children’s ward are, as public works, both awe inspiring and, plainly inspiring. By craniv boyd.