The Photography of Edvard Munch with Patricia G. Berman, MaryClaire Pappas, & Edward Gallagher

In coordination with our ongoing exhibition "The Experimental Self: Edvard Munch’s Photography," Scandinavia House presents a virtual program celebrating the release of the illustrated book "The Experimental Self: The Photography of Edvard Munch," awarded with diploma as one of The Year’s Most Beautiful Books, 2021 by Grafill, Norway’s National Organization for Visual Communication. In today’s program, renowned Munch scholar Patricia G. Berman examines a selection of photographs featured in the exhibition, followed by MaryClaire Pappas, who will expand on her essay in the catalogue, examining a series of self-portraits (or, “Selfies”), taken by Munch, also featured in the exhibition. After these two presentations, Dr. Berman and Pappas will join ASF President Edward Gallagher as moderator in a discussion with about the relevance of Munch’s photos today. "The Experimental Self: Edvard Munch’s Photography," an exhibition organized by American-Scandinavian Foundation with The Munch Museum in Oslo first brought the photographic work of the master painter to NYC in 2017/18 before traveling worldwide. Curated by the Munch scholar Patricia G. Berman, the exhibition drew widespread acclaim for introducing audiences to his photographic and film work, emphasizing the artist’s experimentalism, and examining his exploration of the camera as an expressive medium. This exhibition includes Munch’s experimental portraiture of friends and family as well as his self-portraiture, including images from what he termed his “Fatal Destiny” portfolio, staged between 1902 and 1908. By probing and exploiting the dynamics of “faulty” practice, such as distortion, blurred motion, eccentric camera angles, and other photographic “mistakes,” Munch photographed himself and his immediate environment in ways that rendered them poetic. In both still images and in his few forays with a hand-held moving-picture camera, Munch not only archived images, but invented them. The exhibition returned to Scandinavia House this winter with a newly conceived design and a section including vintage camera equipment. Available for purchase in the Shop at Scandinavia House, the new publication includes 120 fully illustrated pages alongside essays by curator Patricia G. Berman, Tom Gunning and MaryClaire Pappas. Exhibition: go.amscan.org/ExperimentalSelf Virtual interactive tour: go.amscan.org/MunchVirtualTour Learn more about Scandinavia House at www.scandinaviahouse.org #EdvardMunch #TheExperimentalSelf #MunchPhotography