Reinhardt Søbye and his art
By Håvard Rem
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In 1988, 1 moved back to my home town of Arendal, a small provincial town in South Norway. Once upon a time, this 1 7th century town was one of the largest seafaring communities in Scandinavia. Elegant patrician houses were built - architectural jewels in timber. The sailing ships disappeared a hundred years ago. The town fell into decline. The old majestic houses stood crooked and unpainted. In the 1 970s, the council decided to tear down the houses and replace them with concrete tower blocks. But the past returned. Local architects began to design new houses in the old style. The young generation won the battle to renovate the old timber houses. Arendal today is proud of its heritage. Not only had I come back to my home town and the past, but the past had come back to my home town and the present, This characterised Norwegian aesthetics in the 1980s: the past came back. Not only in architecture, but also in other aesthetic disciplines. There was a revival in figurative art, a resurgence in tonal music, the classic verse form returned to poetry and epic novels were reborn. Aesthetic discipline returned. Craftsmanship. Probably the best known protagonist of Norwegian aesthetic revivalism is the neo classical artist Odd Nerdrum. His pupils attacked the modernists who dominated Norwegian art. The debate raged in the media. The modernists were accused of ineptitude. The assault included the national art curriculum. Students never learned to draw. They couldn't even draw a hand!
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The artist Reinhardt Søbye is a separate chapter in this story of confrontation between trend and tradition in Norway in the 1980s. He created a sensation with his skills at the 1987 Annual State Autumn Exhibition. At last, the time was ripe for such a display of artistic proficiency. Furthermore, in contrast to his contemporaries who had years of academic training behind them, Reinhardt Søbye was self-taught! The young, progressive Søbye first won critical acclaim and public recognition in the mid-1 980s. He was at the right place at the right time, and the future was bright. But no. In the I 990s, Søbye has not had one single exhibition of note in the Norwegian capital. Nor has he received the professorship in art that he applied for (and for which he was on initially nominated) from the Academy of Art in Oslo. For ten years he has led a nomadic existence on the fringes, and currently lives way out in the country in the tiny community of Melbu in North Norway. So what happened?
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Around 1 980, the grandest of all renovated 17th century buildings in Arendal was turned into an art gallery. Reinhardt Søbye opened a one-man exhibition (his second in Norway) here in 1989. Unfortunately, the exhibition was overshadowed by a glaring article in the local newspaper, which quoted the young artist as saying that he "was not ashamed of being on the dole!" I followed the story with great interest. The background was as follows: A neighbouring town had been declared an 'art town'. Søbye was invited to live there but reckoned that the financial resources were controlled by a local clique of ceramists. Despite being ranked as artistically superior, Søbye received little or no support. Moreover, because he knew he was a distinguished artist, he could claim social security without any qualms. Was Søbye paranoid or was he suffering from delusions of grandeur? No doubt, many great artists have been a bit of both. The great Norwegian poet, Agnar Mykle, said that a mixture of paranoia and megalomania was the chemistry of artistic talent. But no, I lived in the same province myself and knew better. Søbye was probably I00% correct in his assertion. Cliques and unfair preference exist in most aesthetic environments, not only in institutional art circles in the metropolises and capitals, but also in the provinces. The most startling was that Søbye dared to speak his mind. Exposing the Mafia, but worse, leaving yourself wide open. Social security. shoplifting in the supermarket. Was the guy mad? If not, was he a great artist? I was in no doubt. Søbye's drawings said it all. Giant supernaturalist portraits by an artist who was clearly an accomplished genius, and quite simply the best in Norway.
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The story about Reinhardt Søbye in the I980s was a romantic story about the young artist who one day discovered his talent, and left university and the normal style of life he was supposed to live. As a complete unknown he developed his artistic skills, and when he finally came forth, he was a success. The story about Reinhardt Søbye in the 1990s is also romantic, but patently sad. It's about a misconstrued and gradually marginalised genius who is opposed by both local and national art milieus, who is forced to submit his work for acceptance under a pseudonym, who becomes entrenched in a hopeless legal battle with art institutions because they refuse to grant him the professorship to which he is entitled, who has to beg for money from the social security office, who is prescribed anti-depressive tablets because "his pictures are so dark and gloomy" ! In 1994, 1 moved back to Oslo. There was no Reinhardt Søbye. He had disappeared far out into the countryside, both in my conciousness and in Norwegian culture.
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Two years ago, I was well under way with a major book project. The background was as follows: Each year 1 20,000 Norwegians call 'Kirkens SOS' (Translator's note: this is equivalent to the Samaritans Organisation in the UK) because they are verging on suicide and need to talk with someone. 'Kirkens SOS' has a thousands volunteers manning the telephone lines. The Organisation wanted to give these volunteers a quality book as a show of appreciation. Fifteen Norwegian authors wrote about their painful emotional experiences. The book also required an illustrator. But who? No-one was suitable. In this context, it would have been wrong to use a purely abstract, aesthetically oriented artist. Similarly, it would have been wrong to use an artist focused on social realism. I searched for a style that I couldn't quite define. An artist who wrapped himself in human suffering without any aesthetic or ideological superstructure, and who could reflect the pain in a form that was unmistakable. An artist who at once was available, socially aware, non-ideological, and with traces of Heaven. The artist was not to be found.
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Then one day in 1 997, I open Norway's largest morning paper and see a full-page article on a Norwegian artist who, in two years, will hold a major one-man retrospective in Tokyo. Shigeo Chiba, curator at the Japan National Museum of Modern Art, tells the paper: "This Norwegian artist's work depicts realism in a social context, an art-expression not seen in Japan today, The article includes a photograph of the artist together with two of his giant portraits.
It is Reinhardt Søbye. Not only that, it is the artist I've been searching for in connection with the book project. I call him immediately and ask him if he will illustrate the book. Without hesitation he replies "yes". That "yes" results in a beautiful and powerful book, illustrated with eighteen of Søbye's portraits, like a life frieze, from the new-born baby in the beginning to the 102-year-old woman at the end.
I live with the portraits for a year. Twenty of the portraits are hung at the publishers. The images do something to me. I don't know what. Because the images are so photographically supra-realistic, the eye is not distracted by aesthetic play. Because the images are clearly just a "surface", you are forced beneath the "surface". You are forced to meet the portrait's stare.
The psychologist in Søbye sees me studying the pictures. He says: "I also draw portraits on commission. My portraits could save many marriages. For the husband who has my portrait of his wife on the wall, the portrait will slowly encourage empathy. " The Japanese exhibition is now reality. The story of Reinhardt Søbye in the next decade begins in neither Oslo nor the country.
It begins in Tokyo.

Håvard Rem (40) is a poet and writer, living in Oslo. His poetry has been translated into English and used as lyrics by Morten Harket (a ha) and others. Håvard Rem has translated inter alia William Shakespeare, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan for theatre and CD.