NIMIS / KULLABERG
There are many ways to explore and navigate through the large, peculiar sculpture called Nimis – Latin for “too much” – hidden in the nature reserve Kullaberg in southern Sweden.
Lars Vilks was both a scholar, who received his PhD in art history at Lund University in 1987 and an internationally practicing artist. Nimis is the merge of both practices, equally conceptually interesting and visually striking.
“Vilks often claimed that art could be considered a kind of process.”
Vilks often claimed that art could be considered a kind of process.
Instead of viewing an artwork as something that first is produced by an artist, and later viewed by an audience, he wanted to explore what would happen if the audience became part of the art production, leaving the artwork with no definite beginning or end.
In 1984, when he began creating Nimis, he made the construction big enough for people to walk through it and to climb on its exteriors.
With every visit, the artwork would grow in meaning and significance, as emotional bonds were formed between the sculpture itself, the site where it was placed and the people who visited, and in that way created their own memories of it.
“An important aspect of the creative process is that the artwork is illegal.”
An important aspect of the creative process is that the artwork is illegal. It is against the law to build anything in a natural reserve.
Throughout the years, Vilks was involved in a number of court cases, as governmental forces wanted to tear it down.
True to his training as a researcher and his artistic practice, Vilks considered these legal fights to be part of the ever-growing span of the artwork itself.
Nimis was not the only artwork created by Vilks. Next to it is Arx, a formation of stones created by Vilks.
He also announced the area to be an independent state, the monarchy Ladonia, as part of his artistic process, and as a commitment to exploring relations of power, this time between the Swedish state and its citizens.
Later in life, he continued along the same lines, investigating power relations between religion and free speech, which led to controversy and the need for him to have police protection at all time.
When he died in 2021, it was in a car accident,
Nimis had already for a few years been without supervision and the question remains how it will be cared for when its founder no longer is around to add new parts and mend old ones.
