Ola Enstad (1942–2013)

Ola Enstad was a Norwegian sculptor. He was born on 10 November 1942 at Lesjaskog in Gudbrandsdalen, the son of the farmer Sverre Enstad and Rannveig Solberg, and died in Oslo on 2 August 2013.

He began studying architecture at NTH in Trondheim, but moved to the National College of Art and Design in Oslo (1967–69) and then the National Academy of Fine Arts (1969–72/73), where he studied figure modelling and portraiture under Per Palle Storm. He made his debut at Høstutstillingen, the state’s annual autumn exhibition, in 1970.

His breakthrough came with the solo exhibition at Kunstnerforbundet in 1973: eight mask-like, expressionless heads in concrete with titles such as «Makt» (Power), «Lov og orden» (Law and Order), «Rådgiver» (Adviser), «Evnukk» (Eunuch) and «Borgerskapets diskrete sjarm» (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie). In Samtiden in 1979, H. Flor described them as «anti-monuments to the representatives of power». With few means, dark humour and irony, Enstad set himself against conformity and oppression throughout his life.

The lizard recurs in his work, from the play sculpture «Stegosaurus» (1979), which won first prize in 1977, to «Homosaurer». From the 1980s the frogman, stylised, in a wetsuit with oxygen tanks, became a recurring motif, from «Froskemannskoret» (The Frogman Choir, 1983) to «Dykkar skulptur» along the Akerselva river (1990). He also worked with photomontage.

Enstad exhibited at the Nouvelle Biennale de Paris in 1985, and from 1990 he held the state’s guaranteed income for artists. The project «Den endelege løysinga på skulpturproblemet» (The Final Solution to the Problem of Sculpture, 1987–91), nine parts carved from a single block of Carrara marble, was shown at the Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo (1991), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo (1993) and Kunstnerforbundet (1995), and was published as a book by Det Norske Samlaget in 1997. In 1999 he received the Ingeborg and Per Palle Storm honorary award.

In his last years he worked for long periods in China, where he was invited to exhibit and teach, and a museum in Beijing bought work by him. In the spring of 2012 he showed sculptures and photomontages made in Chongqing and Beijing at Hå Old Vicarage. The same year saw the book «Den som har noko å fara med – han fer». He died while preparing an exhibition at Kunstbanken in Hamar; it opened as planned in November 2013. That year the City of Oslo bought «Dykkaren» (The Diver), a frogman in polished steel that was put up on Honnørbrygga pier the following year.

He is represented in collections including the National Museum of Norway, Lillehammer Art Museum, Trondheim Art Museum, KODE in Bergen, Stavanger Art Museum, the Storting’s art collection, the City of Oslo Art Collection, UiT The Arctic University of Norway and Arts Council Norway, and has public works in Oslo, Lillestrøm, Stavanger, Tromsø, Arendal, Vestby and Lesja.

Ola Enstad

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