Hannah Ryggen weaves stories of striking topi­cality. Her monu­mental tapes­tries bravely tackle the funda­mental issues of life in society today: the atrocity of war, the abuse of power, the depen­dence on nature and the rela­tion to family as well as fellow men and women.

Living on a small self-suffi­cient farm on the west coast of Norway, the Swedish-Norwe­gian artist created a powerful, polit­i­cally inspired oeuvre. She launched spec­tac­ular visual attacks on Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini and made powerful state­ments of support to the victims of Fascism and Nazism. On the occa­sion of Norway’s turn as Guest of Honor at the Frank­furt Book Fair in 2019, the SCHIRN is dedi­cating a major mono­graphic exhi­bi­tion that will provide the first in-depth insight into her oeuvre to the German public.

The roughly 25 tapes­tries on display will also show Hannah Ryggen as a repre­sen­ta­tive of a different kind of modernism, a modernism where elements from folk art and mythology are mixed with issues from contem­po­rary life. She explored an entirely new range of motifs while using a tradi­tional medium for an unprece­dented purpose: making portable murals that commu­ni­cated her potent polit­ical messages to the public.