Masks were rare and social distances varied, but the human chain spread out, as protestors in Oslo braved the risk of COVID-19 infection in a last-ditch bid to save a building adorned by Spanish master painter Pablo Picasso.
Damaged in right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik’s July 2011 attacks, the “Y Block,” a government building complex named for its shape and completed in 1969, is to be demolished soon.
On its grey cement walls are two Picasso drawings, sandblasted by Norwegian artist Carl Nesjar, who collaborated with the Spaniard.
Photo: AFP
On the facade facing the street, The Fishermen depicts three men hauling their oversized catch on board their boat. In the lobby, The Seagull shows the bird, its wings spread wide, devouring a fish.
Etched in the Spanish painter’s childlike strokes, the two works would be cut out and relocated to new government buildings due to be built in the central Oslo neighborhood.
However, not everyone likes that plan.
“We’re going to be kicking ourselves for years,” said Erik Lie, one of the about 200 Norwegians who came to protest the demolition.
“I hope it’s not too late,” he said.“But this will probably be a pile of rubble soon.”
Because of COVID-19, protesters were linked by meter-long ribbons in a bid to keep them at a safe distance from one another.
The Norwegian Directorate of Public Construction and Property, which oversees the demolition, said the murals are to be dismantled before the end of spring.
The nearby “H Block” building, built in the late 1950s and which has three other Picasso murals, was home to the prime minister’s offices until Breivik blew up a van loaded with 950kg of explosives at its base.
“H Block” would be renovated and continue to tower over the new ministry buildings.
“‘Y Block’ is an iconic building in Oslo that has survived a terrorist attack, and now the government wants to tear it down, and nobody can actually give a good argument for why they should,” said Tone Dalen, one of the protests’ figureheads.
The government said that the demolition to make space for new buildings was a difficult, but necessary decision.
“It will improve security and accessibility for cyclists and pedestrians, and will provide a more open and greener space, as well as offices suited to the future ministries,” Minister of Local Government Nikolai Astrup said.
“A lot of people think that it’s Picasso that deserves to be preserved, but it’s also the architecture and the interaction between ‘Y Block’ and ‘H Block,’ the history that it represents,” Lie said.
“These are monuments that illustrate the rebuilding of Norway after the war, and everything that I associate with the development of modern society,” he added.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS