This is a past event
On the occasion of The Far North exhibition at the Sir Duncan Rice Library, join us for Reinhard Behrens' illustrated and lively talk about his 40-year-old artistic concept of Naboland that features a toy submarine, penguins, Orientalist camels, Viking adventures and an excursion through Flemish art history on the way to Venice.
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German-born artist Reinhard Behrens started his Scottish life in 1979 when he joined Edinburgh College of Art as the recipient of a DAAD grant. What was meant to take only one year was the start of the artist’s on-going fascination with Scotland and its wild, inspiring landscape and rich history.
Scotland proved to be a fertile ground for his whimsical approach to art, making use of visually rich references to expeditions of the Edwardian Age with the polar adventures making the first chapter, “Naboland the North”, of his investigation into the existence of “Naboland”.
A chance find of a toy submarine on the German North Sea coast in 1974 and the discovery of a Turkish newspaper article that described the collision between a cargo ship named “Naboland” and a Turkish submarine set the artist off on a life long quest to explore aspects of Naboland that so far has led to the additional chapters “Naboland the East”, “Across the Desert”, “The Italian Visits”, “A Flemish Excursion” “Beyond the Nabo-La” and “The Viking Connection”.
Elaborate installations of explorers’ huts next to drawings, paintings and prints generate a high degree of “authenticity” of Naboland as a parallel yet accessible world.
Free admission but booking advisable
- Speaker
- Reinhard Behrens
- Hosted by
- Special Collections Centre
- Venue
- The Special Collections Centre Seminar Room, Lower Ground Floor, The Sir Duncan Rice Library
- Contact