2003 Rogaland museum - Gras Katalog - Victor Lind

A notion of GRAS
Summary
The production of GRAS in a historical light must be viewed both with regards to
the artistic atmosphere that permeated the Norwegian artistic scene in the late 1960s
and the early 1970s and with regards to the socio-political situation that was then
dominant in the society as a whole.
The production of GRAS can be regarded as in opposition to the nonfigurative
image that was prominent in Norway in the 1960s. Accepting that the
dominant aesthetic taste of the period emphasised the non-figurative form, the
movement by GRAS to draw on other inspirations and artistic formulations was as
significant as their political sympathies and aspirations. Those sympathies and
aspirations took hold in their work through both subject matter and the intentions
from which their creative acts grew.
For the GRAS artists, the work of art as a physical entity represented more
than just an interest in form, void of a possible relationship with its contemporary
public. The work of art according to GRAS demanded that the beholder and the
public took a stance to its import and the conditions concerning its existence. The
inexpensive production of works of art, assisted by the silkscreen technique, was for
example a politicised act in itself. As such, GRAS works were not simply politicised
through the preferred subject matter. Since the group also attempted to tear down
the division between high and low art, a division that was against their political
views, the group intentionally created art for the people and not specifically for the
economically fortunate few.
What is interesting with regards to GRAS' production, however, is that they
managed to unite the political and the aesthetic in their works, hailing their aestheticised
argument in both individual works and group productions, as they attended
to the roots of the social situation in Norway of the 1970s.
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