Lars Ramberg
Oslo 2014
Installations
Across from the quite naturalistic sculpture of Christian Frederik is the rather controversial installation Liberté by Lars Ramberg. Originally banned from the spot, finally accepted, just in front of Stortinget.Shaped like three functioning Parisian public toilet, colored in blue, white and red, named liberty, equality and fraternity.
Public toilets are not usually seen as something noteworthy, but when you really need one, you are thankful when you find one. Even if they are associated by something dirty and unmentionable, their purpose is exactly the opposite, to keep the city clean and to hide what we do not want to see (or smell).
Also some lines of politics aim to make the city nicer, but what it really does is to hide the problematic issues like begging, prostitution, immigrants and the disabled. Are the three virtues liberty, equality and fraternity present today, or are they just words we hide behind while we enjoy our liberty to consume and pollute as much as we like, our equality with our own people, not the others, and the fraternity with our own kind?
