She is equally captivated every time she visits Henrik Ibsen’s apartment in Arbins gate in Oslo. – I have never seen it as beautiful as it is now, says the actress as she enters the dark premises. Visitors who want to experience the Ibsen Museum in Oslo face closed doors. This has been the case since 2019, when the museum closed its doors to the public due to construction work. The museum is furnished as it was when Henrik Ibsen lived there. It houses, among other things, the desk the artist used when he wrote several of his plays. Henrik Ibsen had a view of Slottsparken where he sat at his desk in his study in Arbins gate. The museum has decorated the room as it was when Ibsen lived. NTB/Roald Marker/news Lise Fjeldstad is sad. – A scandal is almost too weak a word. This is completely absurd. The government is obviously not interested in our cultural heritage. Businessman and art collector Christian Ringnes owns the farm where the Ibsen Museum & Theater is located. He does not understand that the state will spend 16 million in rent and get nothing back for it. – It’s completely idiotic. When you have already allocated so much money to rebuild here, that you cannot allocate the little extra to pay tribute to our perhaps greatest artist of all time. – Can’t you lower the price a bit, then? – To put it that way, we have been involved in the biggest excesses and all sorts of strange things. We don’t make any money from this anyway, so now the others get to play. – Don’t have money to operate It is the foundation Norsk Folkemuseum that is responsible for the operation at the Ibsen Museum & Theatre. Director Nina Refseth says that they simply do not have the money to keep the museum open to the public. – The subsidy we get now is less than the rent. We don’t have the money to operate, she says. Nina Refseth, director of the Norsk Folkemuseum foundation, is also responsible for operations at the Ibsen Museum & Theater in Oslo. Photo: Roald Marker / news Refseth asked for NOK 17.6 million to operate the museum and the new theater venture in connection with the museum. She is disappointed that they didn’t get the money. The museum could have been reopened with NOK six million, she says. – We are very happy that there is an investment in Ibsen in Skien, but we would like people to see the importance of having this open in the capital as well, says Refseth. In an article in Dagsavisen, Refseth goes to great lengths to suggest that the grants to Skien are connected with the state secretary’s ambitions to become mayor in his home town. – I mentioned it. It is a case report. There is nothing worse than that, says Refseth. Bustling activity in Skien In Skien, they are preparing for the poet chieftain’s jubilee in five years. In 2028 it will be two hundred years since Henrik Ibsen was born. Statue of Henrik Ibsen in Ibsenparken in the center of Skien. Photo: Britt Boyesen / news Then perhaps it is the state secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Odin Adelsten Aunan Bohmann (Ap) who is the mayor of the city. At least he’s betting on it. In the state budget for 2023, Skien will receive NOK 25 million for Ibsensatsing. Similar grants can be expected in the coming years. Skien received the money as part of the budget settlement between SV and the government. The amount will be used to disseminate Ibsen’s drama and history. A new Ibsen library will be completed by the anniversary. The buildings where Ibsen grew up on Venstøp in Skien will be shiny, newly renovated and beautiful. The childhood home of Henrik Ibsen at Venstøp in Skien. Photo: Øystein Økter / news Bohmann understands that more money is wanted for the Ibsen investment in the capital. Odin Adelsten Aunan Bohmann, State Secretary in the Ministry of Culture. Photo: Roald Marker / news In a tight city budget, he is proud to have secured money for the Peer Gynt convention in Gålå and two large projects in Skien. – If there was any author who was victorious in this budget, it was certainly Henrik Ibsen. But he flatly refutes that the money flooding the Ibsen investment in Skien has anything to do with him wanting to become mayor. – It has nothing to do with this at all. Ibsen’s irony Ibsen’s old furniture now stands in dark premises in Arbins gate in Oslo. No one knows when, or if, the museum will reopen. Henrik Ibsen’s apartment in the Ibsen Museum & Theatre. Photo: Roald Marker / news Lise Fjeldstad thinks it is reminiscent of Ibsen’s irony. – We have a culture minister who would never have been in such a position if it hadn’t been for Ibsen paving the way for us women. You may have to write that behind your ear.
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Calls Ibsen’s investment a national scandal – the state secretary’s hometown Skien got money – news Vestfold and Telemark – Local news, TV and radio
