Exhibition:
Norwegian Art from the Vikings to the 18th Century, Brussels/Paris, 1954.
Organisation:
Commission for the implementation of the Belgian-Norwegian cultural convention.
Post World War II Europe saw the creation not only of new military and economic alliances, but also new cultural treaties. In the context of one such treaty, an exhibition was devised to make Norwegian art better known in Europe and to contribute to international understanding in the midst of the Cold War – at least according to the Norwegian Foreign Minister Halvard Lange in the preface to the catalogue depicted here. The exhibition also included parts of the Hoen Hoard. The Viking Age was presented in this context as a contribution to a shared European heritage.
Exhibition:
Norway and the Soviet Union, Oslo 1964.
Organisation:
Norwegian Foreign Ministry.
In this letter, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry requests police protection for the large gold ring from the Hoen Hoard, which was included in the exhibition Norway and the Soviet Union. This took place on the occasion of a state visit by Nikita Khrushchev, head of the Soviet government. Contemporary research assumed that the ring, which was discovered in Norway in 1834, was originally made on the territory of modern-day Russia, and could thus be exhibited as evidence for the historic roots of the contact between the two regions. Although Norway had joined NATO in 1949, the country’s border with Russia meant that it was keen to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union.
Exhibition:
World of the Vikings, Kiel/West Berlin/Vienna, 1972/73.
Organisation:
State Historical Museum Stockholm, Schleswig-Holstein State Museum for Prehistory and Early History.
The exhibition was produced for the Sailing Olympics, which were held in Kiel in 1972, and introduced an international audience to a comprehensive depiction of the Viking Age for the first time. A copy of the Hiddensee Hoard – the original was in the GDR – was exhibited in the section entitled Relations with Eastern Europe. The catalogue emphasised the aim of an objective representation of the age, and maintained that depictions of the “Vikings” had previously fluctuated between the excessively barbaric or the excessively heroic, particularly in exaggeratedly nationalistic versions. The Swedish–West German exhibition project evidently provided an opportunity to make the Viking Age accessible again after its ideological appropriation during the Nazi period.
Exhibition:
Exhibition at the Ostseewoche, Stralsund, annually 1958–75.
Organisation:
Stralsund Museum for Cultural History.
From 1958 onwards, the Ostseewoche was organised as an East German counterpart to West Germany’s Kieler Woche – a week of festivities with sporting and cultural activities. It was held in the north of the country and had a programme of numerous cultural and political events with international guests. Part of the aim of the week was to achieve diplomatic recognition for the GDR throughout the entire Baltic Sea region. Up to 1975 it was also the only event where the original Hiddensee Hoard was annually put on display. As a product of the Viking Age that was originally crafted in southern Scandinavia and discovered within the borders of what had since become the East German state, it fitted in well with the political aim of the event, namely to reinforce regional networks.
Exhibition:
Stralsund under Socialism, Stralsund, 1975/75.
Organisation:
Stralsund Museum for Cultural History.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the GDR, this exhibition aimed to demonstrate the development of the socialist state using the town of Stralsund as an example. According to surviving documents, the exhibition dealt not only with political and economic topics, but also with the “care and maintenance of our cultural heritage”. This necessarily meant the inclusion of the Hiddensee Hoard, which, according to the official narrative, was secured and “rescued” by the Soviet military administration in the confusion of the post-war period. The efforts made by Fritz Adler, museum director of the time, to ensure the return of the hoard to the museum were of course quietly ignored (cf. film in TO CONCEAL).
Exhibition:
The Vikings, London/New York, 1980.
Organisation:
The British Museum.
The gilt terminal of a horse collar made it to the front cover of the catalogue for the successful exhibition. As in the 1972 exhibition, the aim was to do away with clichéd ideas about barbarians and to take a closer look at the culture of the Viking Age. This time the initiative came from London rather than Scandinavia, although it was looked on favourably by Scandinavian politicians and sponsored by the Nordic Council of Ministers and Scandinavian Airlines. The silver pendants with animal ornamentation from the Hoen Hoard were displayed as representative of an independent Scandinavian artistic style. Gold and silver jewellery were thus presented as indicative of a particularly “advanced” culture.
Exhibition:
From Viking to Crusader. The Scandinavians and Europe 800–1200, Berlin 1992.
Organisation:
Nordic Council of Ministers for the European Council.
Since 1954/55 the European Council has been organising regular exhibitions with the aim of raising public awareness of Europe’s cultural heritage. The exhibition From Viking to Crusader presented the Hoen Hoard in the section entitled Long-distance relations. In addition to displaying objects from the Arabian, Persian, and Byzantine cultural spheres, it also contains western European objects from the Christian Frankish Empire. The hoard hence appears predestined for the educative aim of the exhibition, to show the progressive integration of the North into a European cultural sphere defined by Christianity.
Exhibition:
The Vikings, Copenhagen/London/Berlin, 2013–2015.
Organisation:
National Museum Copenhagen, British Museum London, Museum of Prehistory and Early History Berlin.
This exhibition was initiated by the Danish National Museum and shown in three countries. Each country had its own catalogue design: the sword, gold, and waves on the German catalogue served to reinforce the one-dimensional view of the Vikings as adventure-loving Scandinavian warriors. By contrast, the simpler Danish cover suggests objectivity. Gold treasures, including the Hiddensee Hoard, were presented in the exhibition as expressions of power. In the catalogues, the forewords by Queen Margrethe of Denmark and the then President of the Federal Republic of Germany Joachim Gauck, speak of the role of Viking Age artefacts in cultural diplomacy.
Exhibition:
Víkingr. Travel, war, and religion in a changing society, Oslo, 2019 to the present.
Organisation:
Historical Museum of the University of Oslo.
In a similar way to the European Council exhibition of 1992, the Hoen Hoard is currently displayed in Oslo as a testimony to the transregional connections of the Viking Age. However, this interpretation takes a back seat to a more aestheticised presentation that places an emphasis on the beauty of the materials and the craftsmanship of the artisans of the early Middle Ages. The exhibition makes no mention of the political instrumentalisation of Viking-age culture or of the discursive appropriations that have constantly produced new interpretations of the treasure hoards.
Exhibition:
Meet the Vikings, Copenhagen, 2018–2021.
Organisation:
National Museum Copenhagen.
During the redesign of the Viking Age department of the Danish National Museum, the objects on display were supplemented by Jim Lyngvild‘s larger-than-life photographs of actors wearing interpretations of Viking-age finds. This woman is depicting the 10th-century Danish Queen Tove wearing jewellery from the Hiddensee Hoard. This mise-en-scène of modern-day actors as people from the Viking Age serves to eliminate historical distance – the fictional past becomes a screen onto which the present can be projected. This large-format fiction exhibited within a museum space was widely criticised.
Exhibition:
Norwegian Art from the Vikings to the 18th Century, Brussels/Paris, 1954.
Organisation:
Commission for the implementation of the Belgian-Norwegian cultural convention.
Post World War II Europe saw the creation not only of new military and economic alliances, but also new cultural treaties. In the context of one such treaty, an exhibition was devised to make Norwegian art better known in Europe and to contribute to international understanding in the midst of the Cold War – at least according to the Norwegian Foreign Minister Halvard Lange in the preface to the catalogue depicted here. The exhibition also included parts of the Hoen Hoard. The Viking Age was presented in this context as a contribution to a shared European heritage.
Exhibition:
Norway and the Soviet Union, Oslo 1964.
Organisation:
Norwegian Foreign Ministry.
In this letter, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry requests police protection for the large gold ring from the Hoen Hoard, which was included in the exhibition Norway and the Soviet Union. This took place on the occasion of a state visit by Nikita Khrushchev, head of the Soviet government. Contemporary research assumed that the ring, which was discovered in Norway in 1834, was originally made on the territory of modern-day Russia, and could thus be exhibited as evidence for the historic roots of the contact between the two regions. Although Norway had joined NATO in 1949, the country’s border with Russia meant that it was keen to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union.
Exhibition:
World of the Vikings, Kiel/West Berlin/Vienna, 1972/73.
Organisation:
State Historical Museum Stockholm, Schleswig-Holstein State Museum for Prehistory and Early History.
The exhibition was produced for the Sailing Olympics, which were held in Kiel in 1972, and introduced an international audience to a comprehensive depiction of the Viking Age for the first time. A copy of the Hiddensee Hoard – the original was in the GDR – was exhibited in the section entitled Relations with Eastern Europe. The catalogue emphasised the aim of an objective representation of the age, and maintained that depictions of the “Vikings” had previously fluctuated between the excessively barbaric or the excessively heroic, particularly in exaggeratedly nationalistic versions. The Swedish–West German exhibition project evidently provided an opportunity to make the Viking Age accessible again after its ideological appropriation during the Nazi period.
Exhibition:
Exhibition at the Ostseewoche, Stralsund, annually 1958–75.
Organisation:
Stralsund Museum for Cultural History.
From 1958 onwards, the Ostseewoche was organised as an East German counterpart to West Germany’s Kieler Woche – a week of festivities with sporting and cultural activities. It was held in the north of the country and had a programme of numerous cultural and political events with international guests. Part of the aim of the week was to achieve diplomatic recognition for the GDR throughout the entire Baltic Sea region. Up to 1975 it was also the only event where the original Hiddensee Hoard was annually put on display. As a product of the Viking Age that was originally crafted in southern Scandinavia and discovered within the borders of what had since become the East German state, it fitted in well with the political aim of the event, namely to reinforce regional networks.
Exhibition:
Stralsund under Socialism, Stralsund, 1975/75.
Organisation:
Stralsund Museum for Cultural History.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the GDR, this exhibition aimed to demonstrate the development of the socialist state using the town of Stralsund as an example. According to surviving documents, the exhibition dealt not only with political and economic topics, but also with the “care and maintenance of our cultural heritage”. This necessarily meant the inclusion of the Hiddensee Hoard, which, according to the official narrative, was secured and “rescued” by the Soviet military administration in the confusion of the post-war period. The efforts made by Fritz Adler, museum director of the time, to ensure the return of the hoard to the museum were of course quietly ignored (cf. film in TO CONCEAL).
Exhibition:
The Vikings, London/New York, 1980.
Organisation:
The British Museum.
The gilt terminal of a horse collar made it to the front cover of the catalogue for the successful exhibition. As in the 1972 exhibition, the aim was to do away with clichéd ideas about barbarians and to take a closer look at the culture of the Viking Age. This time the initiative came from London rather than Scandinavia, although it was looked on favourably by Scandinavian politicians and sponsored by the Nordic Council of Ministers and Scandinavian Airlines. The silver pendants with animal ornamentation from the Hoen Hoard were displayed as representative of an independent Scandinavian artistic style. Gold and silver jewellery were thus presented as indicative of a particularly “advanced” culture.
Exhibition:
From Viking to Crusader. The Scandinavians and Europe 800–1200, Berlin 1992.
Organisation:
Nordic Council of Ministers for the European Council.
Since 1954/55 the European Council has been organising regular exhibitions with the aim of raising public awareness of Europe’s cultural heritage. The exhibition From Viking to Crusader presented the Hoen Hoard in the section entitled Long-distance relations. In addition to displaying objects from the Arabian, Persian, and Byzantine cultural spheres, it also contains western European objects from the Christian Frankish Empire. The hoard hence appears predestined for the educative aim of the exhibition, to show the progressive integration of the North into a European cultural sphere defined by Christianity.
Exhibition:
The Vikings, Copenhagen/London/Berlin, 2013–2015.
Organisation:
National Museum Copenhagen, British Museum London, Museum of Prehistory and Early History Berlin.
This exhibition was initiated by the Danish National Museum and shown in three countries. Each country had its own catalogue design: the sword, gold, and waves on the German catalogue served to reinforce the one-dimensional view of the Vikings as adventure-loving Scandinavian warriors. By contrast, the simpler Danish cover suggests objectivity. Gold treasures, including the Hiddensee Hoard, were presented in the exhibition as expressions of power. In the catalogues, the forewords by Queen Margrethe of Denmark and the then President of the Federal Republic of Germany Joachim Gauck, speak of the role of Viking Age artefacts in cultural diplomacy.
Exhibition:
Víkingr. Travel, war, and religion in a changing society, Oslo, 2019 to the present.
Organisation:
Historical Museum of the University of Oslo.
In a similar way to the European Council exhibition of 1992, the Hoen Hoard is currently displayed in Oslo as a testimony to the transregional connections of the Viking Age. However, this interpretation takes a back seat to a more aestheticised presentation that places an emphasis on the beauty of the materials and the craftsmanship of the artisans of the early Middle Ages. The exhibition makes no mention of the political instrumentalisation of Viking-age culture or of the discursive appropriations that have constantly produced new interpretations of the treasure hoards.
Exhibition:
Meet the Vikings, Copenhagen, 2018–2021.
Organisation:
National Museum Copenhagen.
During the redesign of the Viking Age department of the Danish National Museum, the objects on display were supplemented by Jim Lyngvild‘s larger-than-life photographs of actors wearing interpretations of Viking-age finds. This woman is depicting the 10th-century Danish Queen Tove wearing jewellery from the Hiddensee Hoard. This mise-en-scène of modern-day actors as people from the Viking Age serves to eliminate historical distance – the fictional past becomes a screen onto which the present can be projected. This large-format fiction exhibited within a museum space was widely criticised.