Nobel Prize Anniversary 1920 // 2020
We are a Norwegian-Israeli art duo based in Berlin. Johan Reisang comes from the same place as Hamsun – Hamarøy in North of Norway – where Knut Hamsun is highly appreciated.
Ela Buria is Jewish and from Israel where Hamsun is more commonly known as the Nobel prize winning author that supported and meet Hitler.
The Hamsun festival has invited us to be festival artists in 2020 and to exhibit in the Hamsun center.
The topic of the festival is that it is 100 years since Hamsun received the Nobel Prize in literature for his book “Growth of the Soil”
Portrait of Knut Hamsun
Pastell painting 110 x 150 cm
Portrait of Marie Hamsun
In the face of Marie you can read one of the first love letters from Hamsun:
Oh please stay with me long Marie!
You can help me as magnificently if you want.
You can make me a Lord and I'll will flow with poetry and books ...
by this time tomorrow you will see me again...
Pastell painting 110 x 150 cm
Murder of a Hare
Portrait of Inger from” Growth of the Soil”, the novel which won Hamsun the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.
"Inger" was born with a harelip (cleft lip) and her biggest fear was also that her children would be kissed by the hare.
Pastell painting 110 x 150 cm
אין מילים // Wordless
Portrait of Joseph Goebbels holding the Nobel Prize Hamsun gave to him with the following letter:
To Minister of the Reich Dr Goebbels.
I whis to thank you for all the kidness you have showed to me on my recent trip to Germany.
Nobel founded his Award as a reward for the most idealistic writing during the recent past. I know of no one, Minister, who has so idealistically and tirelessly written and preached the case for Europe, and for mankind as yourself.
Forgive me for sending you my medal.
Knut Hamsun
WRITTEN BY
Johan Reisang & Ela Buria
We are fascinated by contradiction. We want to bring our ideas to life by criticizing them to death. We seek perfection by balancing oppositions; we want to make sense where there is none.