2007 # 01 Tigoriannguaruk! Tag suluk med hjem! Your personal copy!

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We’re tired of hearing it
With regard to artistic impression, there is nothing that says we ought to be
able to recognize the artist’s ethnic background. Art is a complicated matter
that cannot thrive in small, closed boxes, in the opinion of artist Ina Rosing.
By Christian Schultz-Lorentzen
– As a Greenlander, I am often met
with the notion that I should, as an
artist, relate to my ethnic background
and to Greenland’s nature. It’s not so
bad now, but I have experienced
people who were disappointed when
they couldn’t recognize any Greenlandic
traits in my work. But no artist
can live up to the specific expectations
of others. As an artist, it is very dangerous
to start »delivering the goods«,
regardless of whether you come from
Denmark, Greenland, China or
anywhere else.
Air Greenland inflight magazine 51
With these words, 41-year old Ina
Rosing expresses the increasing irritation
felt by the younger generation of
Greenlandic artists in particular. They
have respect for their colleagues who
use recognisably Greenlandic themes
in their work. But they are tired of gallery
owners and art fans who try at all
costs to put them in a well-defined
straight-jacket of expectations just
because they happen to be artists from
Greenland. There is an artistic world
and an international style which
Greenlandic artists are also a part of.
To put it short:
»We’re tired of hearing it«, as Ina
Rosing called one of her works at the
acclaimed exhibition »Norden Vind«
where she showed a series of works
by deceased and living Greenlandic
artists last autumn.
We are seated at a small round table
with cakes, grapes and fresh tea in our
cups. Ina has lighted candles on the
window sill which is full of chalk-white
conches. They are white because they
have been buried for six months and
then washed and scrubbed. They are
now lined up as if they were on a mig-