As the first step in a larger effort to promote art research, the New Carlsberg Foundation funded 15 PhD fellowships in 2012–2014. Among them was MA Kamma Overgaard Hansen’s research project about the art movement ‘De Unge Vilde’ (wild youth), which was initiated as a collaboration between Aarhus University and Horsens Art Museum based on the museum’s collection of art from the 1980s movement.
This collaboration is now crowned with Kamma Overgaard Hansen’s PhD viva on Wednesday, 24 May at 13.00–16.00 at Aarhus University. The title of her PhD dissertation is “Vi har ikke noget at sige, men vi gør det så koncentreret som muligt” – De Unge Vilde i dansk kunst (‘We have nothing to say, but we’ll keep it as brief as we can’ – Wild Youth in Danish art). The viva, which is held in Danish, is open to the public.
Ironic rebels in art history
In the dissertation Kamma Overgaard Hansen examines the merits of the ‘Wild Youth’ artists in a comprehensive view that also includes their public art performances, one of which provided the title for the dissertation. The underlying premise is that the works of the Wild Youth artists represent both a deliberate strategy and an unconscious visual contagion, and that their works can thus also help us better understand the time during which they were created.
Kamma Overgaard Hansen argues that in many regards, the rebellious stance of the Wild Youth can be seen as a destructive rejection of both the contemporary art scene and the art scene of the past. Thus, at first glance, the movement’s unique approach to creating art may look like the final blow to art. However, Kamma Overgaard Hansen argues that it is rather an ironic artist’s position that questions the status quo in order to make room for the new. To some degree, we are familiar with this position from the avant-garde movement; but paradoxically, the Wild Youth movement aims their avant-garde rebellion at the avant-garde itself.