Nordic Noir review one severed horse's head is just not nearly enough noir

"Nordic noir. Wasn't that a genre that had people abuzz back in the 00s? Its revival by the British Museum's prints and drawings department as a title for an exhibition of modern and contemporary Scandinavian graphic art seems desperate. Forget our oldies like Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Durer, Leonardo da Vinci we're all about new stuff by hot young Scandi artists! Maybe it's understandable;"

"The big surprise is that most of the works here are not on loan. The British Museum owns them. It has acquired 400 examples of Nordic graphics with the support of the AKO Foundation. What's that? It's the cultural arm of AKO Capital, one of Europe's leading investment partnerships managing approximately $20.3bn across long-only and long-short equity funds. Bland print The Fallow Deer, 2016, by Mamma Andersson. Photograph: Reproduced by permission of the artist/The Trustees of the British Museum"

"Why is the museum working with this foundation to bring us a pile of so-so Scandinavian modern art? It's funny how these long-short funds never apply caution to buying art. A lot of the newest works in this show will, by the law of averages, lose all interest for later generations or quite possibly this generation in a couple of years."

An exhibition titled Nordic Noir at the British Museum assembles 400 modern and contemporary Scandinavian graphic works acquired with AKO Foundation support. The collection replaces expected historical masters with recent prints by rising Scandi artists. Corporate funding from AKO Capital, a major investment partnership, underwrote acquisitions. Many works appear mediocre and stylistically inconsistent with noir, raising concerns that transient contemporary pieces may quickly lose relevance while the museum is committed to preserve them permanently. Celebrity names sometimes drive acquisitions more than artistic merit. Several works by notable artists are described as dull or non-noir, suggesting a mismatch between museum identity and the collection.

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