A-ha's Mags makes giant Oslo sculpture park
The Local Norway - [email protected]
Published: 26 Jun, 2015 CET.
Updated: Fri 26 Jun 2015 00:06 CET
A-ha keyboardist Magne ‘Mags’ Furuholmen has been commissioned to create a giant ceramics sculpture park that he refers to as “the most comprehensive single mission in my artistic career”.
The gigantic project, commissioned by the Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke for the new headquarters of his engineering company Aker Solutions, will be Scandinavia’s largest ceramics sculpture park.
“I know that my fame to some extent obscures how my work is interpreted,” Furuholmen told Aftenposten’s A Magazine. “Yet I believe I have more to offer the world as an artist than as a musician, in all immodesty.”
The work involves Furuholmen sculpting some 50 tonnes of clay to create a park to rival Oslo’s famous sculpture park by Gustav Vigeland.
Furuholmen is most famous for writing the catchy keyboard riff to A-ha’s 1985 hit Take on Me. He claims the song came to him when he was only 15-years-old, when he called it the Juicy Fruit Song.
He has however long combined his musical career with art, holding his first exhibition in 1989, at the peak of his A-ha fame.
According to the Aftenposten, Røkke’s company has revealed that it is spending 200 million kroner ($25m) on the park, but has not broken down how much of that will go towards Furuholmen’s project.
Røkke has previously commissioned Furuholmen to design a 3600 m2 sail for his yacht, decorate Aker Solutions’ Fornebu building, and create a 12m high steel sculpture of a tree for his summer house.
“I would not say that Furuholmen has been some kind of house artist for Aker,” Torstein Storækre, the manager of Aker’s Fornebu business park, told Aftenposten. “But he is an artist who gives a lot of himself, and who is easy to work with. We also believe that the work he has done for us in the past has been very good.”
A-ha is scheduled to release a new single, “Under The Make-Up” in July and will reunite for an anniversary concert in Rio on 27th September.
Comments
See Also
The gigantic project, commissioned by the Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke for the new headquarters of his engineering company Aker Solutions, will be Scandinavia’s largest ceramics sculpture park.
“I know that my fame to some extent obscures how my work is interpreted,” Furuholmen told Aftenposten’s A Magazine. “Yet I believe I have more to offer the world as an artist than as a musician, in all immodesty.”
The work involves Furuholmen sculpting some 50 tonnes of clay to create a park to rival Oslo’s famous sculpture park by Gustav Vigeland.
Furuholmen is most famous for writing the catchy keyboard riff to A-ha’s 1985 hit Take on Me. He claims the song came to him when he was only 15-years-old, when he called it the Juicy Fruit Song.
He has however long combined his musical career with art, holding his first exhibition in 1989, at the peak of his A-ha fame.
According to the Aftenposten, Røkke’s company has revealed that it is spending 200 million kroner ($25m) on the park, but has not broken down how much of that will go towards Furuholmen’s project.
Røkke has previously commissioned Furuholmen to design a 3600 m2 sail for his yacht, decorate Aker Solutions’ Fornebu building, and create a 12m high steel sculpture of a tree for his summer house.
“I would not say that Furuholmen has been some kind of house artist for Aker,” Torstein Storækre, the manager of Aker’s Fornebu business park, told Aftenposten. “But he is an artist who gives a lot of himself, and who is easy to work with. We also believe that the work he has done for us in the past has been very good.”
A-ha is scheduled to release a new single, “Under The Make-Up” in July and will reunite for an anniversary concert in Rio on 27th September.
Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.
Please log in here to leave a comment.