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Munch, Black Metal and the Nobel Peace Center: A Guide to the Art of Oslo

This city is an entryway into Scandinavia, into Norway and into a society and aesthetic that feels familiar yet is uniquely its own. Its unhurried pace and looming institutions present an atmosphere of stoic civilization, yet running through it all are undercurrents of eclectic folk myth and a mossy woodsiness intertwined with threads of Black Metal and a particular type of expressionistic Scandinavian madness.

By Nick Hilden

Eight Books That Illuminate the Brilliance and Biases of the Nobel Prize

Works by Ishiguro, Wiesel and Feynman show the range of achievement the honor has recognized, while other selections confront the prize's politics and critique the selection committees' choices. The result is a fuller portrait of an honor that has defined excellence for more than a century.

By Nathan Smith

Ragnar Kjartansson Makes the Familiar Strange at Buffalo AKG Art Museum

"Politics of the Obvious," part of the AKG Art Museum's initiative devoted to art from the Nordic region, centers on works that stretch familiar gestures until hidden scripts appear. Two decades of Kjartansson’s video, performance and music reveal how fragile masculinity, capitalism and our own convictions really are.

By Elisa Carollo