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'Let's play art theft!'
27/10/2005 00:43 - (SA)
Oslo - The Munch Museum in Oslo, which was robbed of its world-famous painting The Scream in a violent and daring heist last year, on Wednesday agreed to stop selling a controversial board game inspired by the theft.
"We have no objection to this game being sold in bookstores, but we find it a bit strange for it to be sold over the counter in the place where the brutal robbery in question happened," Oslo city official Lasse Johannessen told AFP.
"From our point of view this is a question of ethics. If an armed robbery is turned into a game, is it right to make employees who experienced the armed robbery sell the product?" he said.
The game, The Mystery of The Scream, has been criticised in Norway's artistic circles since it went on sale last week, including at the Munch Museum's gift shop.
"In principle, I find it a bit in bad taste to make a game out of the theft of The Scream," Kaare Berntsen, the artistic director of the Kaare Berntsen Gallery in Oslo, said.
"My initial reaction is to disapprove of an initiative that helps trivialise a national and international drama while the painting is still missing," he said.
In August 2004, two armed and hooded thieves burst into the museum and threatened a member of staff with a gun as stunned tourists looked on.
Ripping Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's iconic The Scream and his Madonna from the walls, the robbers fled the scene in a stolen car driven by an accomplice.
The paintings, believed to be worth as much as $100m, are still missing.
"The city of Oslo has a different view on this than we do and has said that we should not sell this game... It has let us know that and we will bow to the request," museum spokesperson Jorunn Christoffersen said.
"It is not difficult for us to understand that selling this game is controversial. We have decided not to turn this into a matter of principle," she said, adding that all copies of the game were removed from the museum gift shop.
Created by the Aschehoug publishing house, the game is pitched at children aged six years or over, with participants playing the roles of detectives and or robbers.
The makers said the game was educational.
"In addition to The Scream, the game has 36 cards featuring different artworks that the children know. It's a fun way for them to learn about the diversity of artistic creativity," the head of Aschehoug's games division, Magnus Skrede, said.
- AFP
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South Africa
