In 1937, Norwegian artists urged that the Norwegian Government should allocate 2% of building budgets for “artistic embellishment” in state-funded building projects. They argued that the government had launched various employment programmes for other societal groups at a time of financial turmoil, and therefore ought to see to artists in want of jobs also. By comparison, across the border in Sweden a programme for decorative public art, the State Art Council, was set up that same year.¹ Furthermore, since 1933 the US had had a policy of arts in public space to counteract the hard economic times that had hit after the stock market crash in 1929 triggered a global recession. President Roosevelt had himself initiated a programme in which artists decorated public buildings with murals. Even in Germany the far-right, fascist government had taken the idea to heart.² They saw the monumental format fit for propagating their fascist ideology.

In Norway, the times weren't welcoming neither to a new art policy nor to new public expenditure, and the proposal received little support. The pace of change picked up only after the Second World War. The ideas about what decorative art and building embellishment could be, changed and embraced new formats that differed in scope from the politicised murals of the interwar years. The idea that art in public space had to be monumental in scale, express ideas, and show images was challenged. Simpler forms that were oftentimes much more integrated in the fabric of the building were welcomed as well. Techniques such as wrought iron work were deemed fit and regarded as a fully respectable medium for an artist to work in. Some reacted to this fully integrated art by frowning at its subordination to the architecture, and some held that this made it disappear as art in its own right. Contemporary experts also deemed that these forms of ornamentation could no longer be considered “fine art”, i.e. figurative work.³

By the mid-1960s, several Norwegian municipalities had introduced a 2% allocation for artistic embellishment for their new buildings from the total building budget. (Among these municipalities was Oslo, where this worked out in part only in theory.⁴) As for allocations of the state’s building programmes, a first change came in 1964 when ‘a permanent appropriation for artistic decoration’ was sanctioned (by the Directorate of Public Construction and Property). This entailed also an official advisory committee of seven members, three of which were elected by the visual artists’ organisation, BKS (or Bildende Kunstneres styre, later called Norske billedkunstnere, now the Norwegian Association of Visual Artists). In the 1970s they fought alongside other groups of visual artists to obtain a fixed allocation, which was decreed in 1976 by the Norwegian Parliament. As it had been done in Sweden 40 years earlier, a dedicated agency was also established, and it had representatives from several artists' organisations on the board. This body was named “Utsmykkingsfondet for nye statlige bygg”, which translates to “the Norwegian Public Building Ornamentations Fund” (hereafter referred to as the Fund).

The fund established by the Parliament had set the allocation to public art as 1% of the national building budget, but in the subsequent annual allocations this level was not met. From 1998, means for ornamentation were allocated from each building budget.⁵ In 1992 the Fund took over the responsibility for the regional public art funds as well.

From its onset in 1976, the Fund's board had a representative from the Norwegian Association of Arts and Craft (Norske Kunsthåndverkere, NK) whose members work in some of — but not only — the materials and techniques related to the historical art and craft sector.

The state's recognition of NK’s members on a par with other such artists' organisations also meant that they were liable to act as consultants in the decorative committees organised by the Fund for each individual project, as well as take commissions as artists. With the 1% allocation rule up and running, the scope of projects available to craft artists was significantly expanded.

The Fund organised specialist committees to process the art programmes of public building projects. Alongside the building's architect, there were up to two art consultants, as well as representatives from the building's stakeholders and the developer. The committee was tasked with reaching a consensus on which artist to commission and which artwork was deemed appropriate. Rather than leaving these decisions solely to the architect — as in prior times, the committees had a democratic function, which set the stage for long and complex discussions.⁶

Historically, putting art into an architect's work already carried the potential for conflict between the architect and the artist. Now, with up to two art consultants, the developer’s representative, and a stakeholder representative deciding together, consensus was a whole other matter.

Committees that had two art consultants were possibly facing exhausting deliberations should the two hold divergent views on art, according to the director of the Fund from 1976–1994 Egil Sinding-Larsen. He warned of ‘the burden of a specialised art discussion the rest of the committee couldn’t fully comprehend’ should the consultants’ deliberations suspend the committee’s work. He issued several warnings in an interviewed with the magazine Kunsthåndverk — in its second ever issue, dated 1981.⁷ He feared lack of understanding of and respect for the committee's mandate and expertise from local politicians as a potential threat to its integrity and work, and gave as an example how sometimes local representatives of the developer went about business as usual and awarded the commission to an acquaintance before the committee had had its say in the matter. Yet another concern raised by the director was the very term “utsmykking”, as he saw that by this naming — embellishment or decoration of public buildings — he noted that the Fund’s rationale 'could be perceived as a devaluation of architecture, suggesting that it is not good enough'.⁸

Consensus and injustice
Ceramicist Ingvild Fagerheim represented the artists' perspective in said interview. She cautioned against overly integrated art and warned her colleagues that a compliant artist risked ‘self-castration’. Another dilemma she pointed to was when an artist was commissioned to work within simple and functional buildings constructed without long-lived qualities. For how is one to approach this task ‘given art's own aura of being eternal’, she asks. The artist and the art consultants’ duty in these committees, she saw as ‘demanding quality of the state regarding these buildings’. Yet she shared also her concern for the kind of art — and artists — that didn't readily integrate itself or themselves; artists whose visual language wasn't of the downplayed sort. That could result in them likely never being awarded any commission — which then would be unfair.⁹ Yet the Fund's processing scheme did not adhere to fairness as a principle. It did not search to give everyone the opportunity to contribute, as artistic quality was to be prioritised according to its statutes. Nonetheless, it seems that the notion of fairness found its way into the committees. This was criticised from multiple quarters and on several occasions.

The magazine Kunsthåndverk featured three architects in its first special issue on art in public space, in 1984.¹⁰ The architects argued that many art commissions were used as ‘a subsidy scheme for artists so that everyone would benefit from the program’. These rumours of favouritism and self-interest were later raised by an art historian working at the University of Oslo, who did so in an analysis in the Norwegian Art Yearbook, in 1994.¹¹ He there queried why art in public space only held a low status and frequently was damaged simply because the owners did not value it. He pointed, as part of an explanation, to the use of the programme for some universal benefit for artists who were financially stretched. Such ideas had also permeated the corridors of power; ‘both elected representatives and civil servants have embraced the misplaced argumentation that artists’ worrisome private economy needs to be strengthened, and concluded that the use of pictures in public spaces is a form of subsidization, not a necessary budget item for the good of society’.

That solidarity amongst artists had seeped into the committees was acknowledged when the Fund published a critical survey of its first 15 years of existence. The director stated that ‘both the consultants and the artists launched a principle of fairness so that as many artists as possible should be profiting from the Fund’s means. Progressively that aspect was toned down entirely, and nowadays it is only a question about wholeness and quality’.¹²

Conflicting interests and considerations within the committees leaked into the outside (art) world. The issues of Kunsthåndverk, and in particular those dedicated to the topic of art in public space, didn't shy away from it either. From one such issue we learn how the architectural community entertained a notion of visual artists and craft artists being more than a little self-serving. One such voice from the opposing side of the table made the claim that artists did not ‘adequately pay attention either to architecture or to space — because they tend to only have consideration for themselves’. The harsh words of architect Fredrik A. S. Torp were in print in Kunsthåndverk. In his contribution Torp also struck out at his fellow architects, urging them to show greater humility while also observing that they were all in the need of ‘a better understanding of visual art in our buildings’, and some had to relinquish the idea that ‘architecture is art in itself and therefore sufficient on its own’.¹³ Yet later he also knew to express his enthusiastic praise for a particular public artwork in Oslo’s new Central Police Station that he had drawn — the work called Kilden (“the Source”), by ceramist Kari Christensen, was regarded as a breakthrough for ceramic art in publicly commissioned artworks. The architect was quoted saying that the Source made apparent the ceramist Christensen’s ‘capacity to sift and hold on to the room's atmosphere’ in ways that both fused with the space and the architect’s own ‘desires and unpronounced hopes’ for the site. Kilden sits on an end-wall in the main hall. It is a vertical fountain that transforms the space by use of oxidised slabs of porcelain with dark tiles.¹⁴ Combined, they form an abstraction as much as an image, with the trickling water adding sound and completing the illusion of a natural element reaching into the space.

The dissolving properties of an archive
Matching each building project with the right visual artist or craft artist was a crucial aim in the work of the Fund and its committees. It was even held that it was to service other sectors in selecting art as well. The ambitions were overall substantial in the early 1980s. As expressed by the Fund's director in an interview in 1981, the vision was to create a ‘state-owned and decentralised art collection of unprecedented dimensions’. To do that, the collection was to serve as a foundation for the Fund's mediation work — which with time would form a base for ‘art historical studies, research, and relevant publications’. The idea and the enthusiasm were shared by the art community, naturally. Particularly among the craft artists such enthusiasm was manifest. In her vision of it, Fagerheim, who spoke on behalf of the craft artists, believed that such an archive could counteract a tendency found among her colleagues and others ‘to prioritise public commissions and projects in Oslo over one in a more remote area’ since visibility would be less of an issue — all works would potentially be disseminated on an equal footing.¹⁶

This vision of an archive’s power to, so to say, dissociate or detach public artworks from their locations and then be able to present them on an even keel, was entertained together with ideas about an archive’s ability to work for unbound dissemination. Voices such as these even carried hope of overcoming traditional boundaries within the art world and between art forms. This idea, if not dream, surfaced anew in print in 1986 when an actual art and artists archive was in place — outside of the Fund as it happened. The Artists’ Information Center for Contemporary Art (Kunstnernes informasjonskontor, KIK) had taken to heart the Fund’s ambition of reaching out to art consultants and constructors nationwide. In conjunction with the launch, it was flagged that the archive would level out the art world by placing the artworks’ various qualities on an equal footing. A goal was to disseminate art in ways that went ‘beyond traditional divisions of art’.¹⁷ The fear of craft being inferior to fine art would become a thing of the past once the exactitude, rationality, and veracity of the archive was operative and able to expose the factual qualities of all the artworks.

The early hopes did not hold
In 1984, Kunsthåndverk published two issues documenting most state-financed public art projects completed by craft artists since 1976. The editorial board expressed disappointment with the archival situation and noted that the significant body of public works finished simply ‘ends in anonymity due to a lack of follow-up’.¹⁸ To fight the invisibility cloak, the magazine published two consecutive issues — totalling 53 pages — on public art commissions done by craft artists.

This was a huge undertaking aimed to compensate by serving as a catalogue of contributions to the Fund by the members of the Norwegian Association for Arts and Craft. Close to ten years had passed since the programme's start, and the accumulation of works was indeed a decentralised "collection", but hard to grasp and assess.

The tone of these 1984 publications was somewhat more disheartened compared with the one three years earlier. The introduction outlined the tensions faced by artists when interacting with recipients of public artworks: ‘There are many examples of large and small conflicts between artists and users/audiences, stemming from a lack of trust, interest, and curiosity. Characterised by uncertainty, suspicion, and, in the worst cases, hostility towards art! We do not dwell on these issues here; on the contrary!’ wrote the editors.¹⁹

The realisation of the archive and the extensive research and publication efforts it was supposed to generate did not come into fruition. Regrets about, and reflections on, the lack of interest from the outside world and the media became recurring themes in the subsequent years. The absence of professional critique led to a need to reassess the relevance of public art projects. It was acknowledged that albeit consuming substantial artistic resources, the commissions yielded little peer recognition for the maker.

In an examination of the state of woven art in 1989 by Kristin Skintveit, she held that, at the end of the decade which had been marked by economic prosperity, things were not great. ‘In the 1980s, the one's involved with utilitarian weaving were instead being engaged by the Fund's public art program, and this has led to a less woven works being exhibited in galleries and museums. The result was a scanter attention to woven craft, or an attention characterised by a sense of loss and questions unanswered,’ stated the article. It also furthered that the huge number of publicly commissioned woven pieces had halted the weavers in further developing their art and achievements in gallery exhibitions — despite it being ‘a significant demand for a new, utilitarian woven art’. This strengthened demand did intriguingly also coincide with the fact that ‘many public art projects have been entirely overlooked’, it was noted.²⁰

Two years after this critical assessment was published, Kunsthåndverk printed another large article pulling at this very thread, and it concluded somewhat differently — albeit specifying that the volume of “decorative textiles works in public buildings” for the last 50 years amounted to more than 2000 pieces. Nevertheless, this fact wasn't read as a threat to the more artistically experimental nerve supposedly found on the art scene, or as textile arts made for textile arts' own sake. Instead in 2001 the magazine heralded that ‘public art is a system that constitutes a grand gallery on the periphery of the traditional art scene. (…) For craft artists and textile artists, working on great public art projects is one of the most important exhibition arenas (as) public art constitutes a grand, decentralised gallery’.²¹

On the question of how, in these "grand galleries" the public and the art interact, or the lack of reception of art in public space, the author is quite vague. On print in an issue that celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Norwegian Association of Arts and Craft it is no wonder the tone is a little fluffy, and even reaches back to a figure like John Ruskin's maxim: 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever' — as well as his legacy of pushing this idea in new areas, like school buildings — for with art ‘taste would be created, for “good taste is moral in itself; it's the only moral”'. Andreas Aubert, the Norwegian counterpart to this view, is also paid a visit in the text, by a lengthy quote: ‘If we could only paint our school rooms beautiful, so children in towns and in the countryside were made happy and joyful merely by coming through the corridor into the classroom, we would have come a long way merely by doing this. And not only schools, but all public edifices where people go, churches, court rooms, railway stations — and hospitals too (...) This would provide an appreciation of colour and beauty for our people.’²²

With life-long exposure to art, such an appreciation of beauty could indeed also end up benefitting the understanding and appreciation of artists themselves. Embellishment and decorative public art commissions came late to Norway, and to the state in the form of a proper programme – and only once the nation's economic prospects had been firmly strengthened by the exploitation of petrol resources in the North Sea, that was underway since 1969.

If we halt for a moment on the regularly expressed grievances by craft artists and other producers of art in public space –regarding the feeble feedback their works got from the public and from professionals like art critics, this was close to an innate topic pertaining to this public art work (as it was, and is still, to a large extent when it comes to gallery shows as well, some perhaps would say). A plausible reason for why the reception of these kinds of public art projects was not as reactive and dynamic as many had hoped they would be, may lie in the Fund's focus on young audiences. Its many projects were concentrated in places ‘where youth congregate — be it educational institutions, military camps, or the exterior of a building next to a school’, according to a book by Kjell Norvin from 1992, assessing some of the fund's output in the then 15 years since 1976, the year before its inception.²³

In a review of Norvin’s book in Kunsthåndverk the critic and art historian Hans Egede-Nissen acknowledged the book's ability and willingness to provide a ‘critical, selective review of the fund's activities and their subsequent manifestations.’ Also the book's visuals and documentation were deemed satisfying — however, the projects themselves were frowned upon. If engaging with the book was nice enough, this simply stemmed from the author’s ‘carefully selected samples’, and the subsequent omission of huge parts ‘that we are spared’. The numerous art works funded through nearly 15 years and across the entire country — were thus dismissed for being uninspiring at best.²⁴ With its mild contempt, the text is testament to an understanding of public artworks that prevailed at the time, and well beyond it.

The Fund, and its director who funded the book, also had a say in the publication marking the 15 years of the Fund’s existence. The director’s introductory words recognised the difficulties that its board had experienced in the recent years pointing to the ‘dramatic fall’ in the percentage allocated to public art, and next, the effect this had had on the Fund’s work:

‘The board has to a minor extent been able to make significant artistic and financial investments: hence there are only a few large commissions to show for compared to the many small ones. With our financial limitations, the Fund has also found it difficult to make itself visible — even to the authorities providing our funding. Moreover, general visibility is very hard won given that the news and media outlets rarely cover public decoration apart from its inauguration ceremonies sometimes. Professional art criticism generally focuses solely on exhibitions, and it is notably absent when it comes to public decorations. And that is a paradox since oftentimes these decoration commissions are also the major works in the portfolios of many artists.’

Public discourse on art and quality
These discussions illustrate that there was significant openness in the publicly held dialogue of the experts themselves about art and quality that came out of the programme. Through various channels, including the journal Kunsthåndverk, the director of the Fund, Sinding-Larsen, demonstrated his willingness to openly address the aspects of weakness within the processes the Fund took part in.

In addition to a string of articles published on art in public space, Kunsthåndverk also contributed to this transparency by way of lists of projects involving craft artists – either as artists or consultants. Counting from the aggregate lists of 1984, listing projects that went back to 1976, the column ran until 1994 – thus covering the first 18 years of the Fund’s collaboration with craft artists.