The art world has, quite by accident unearthed Joek Friis; Norway's only native Norwegian Dadaist. Friis was discovered by reporter, Homer Jacobson on a nature jaunt. Friis was on the mountainside doing something peculiar. Jacobson questioned Friis and the article that follows is what transpired on Tryvasshogda.
Found in the Aftenposten Newpaper Oktober 4.1950 -
Dada Comes to Norway, By Way Of Friis
I had just stepped over the crest of the mount when off in the distance I observed a figure standing on the slope. It was an unnatural sight. He was nearly moving about at a ninety degree angle on the slope. I slowly wandered toward. Friis stood on the mountainside in the freezing Norwegian gale trapping wind in jars. What are his plans for these chunks of cold wind I could only guess. I questioned him regarding his habits.
What are you doing on this mountainside?
"I am a gathering Norwegian souvenir's for my trip abroad."
This is a very strange thing to do?
"Not for dada."
Who is dada?
"Dada is well traveled. Dada is worldly but in Norway not. Dada has come to Norway to punch holes into the atmosphere. Dada has come to wipe its feet on wool suits. Dada commanded me to do this what I do and I have disobeyed dada and did what I want."
This dada sounds like a brute. Is he dangerous?
Yes. Yes. Yes. He is the destroyer of gray pinwheels. Spinning, spinning, spinning in the dark, dank caverns on top of the necks of scuttling moles.
What?
Precisely! I am Joek Friis; the cold nipple of dada. I make imagination. I make insanity. I make anti-art which cancels out all other art. It bends the critics and bourgeois double, triple, and so.
You are Joek Friis; The cold nipple of dada? What does this mean?
Moo! I am late from my train.
With this, Friis ran down the mountain to the near by train station where a woman and a young girl scrambled onto a car and they slowly lurched away. I questioned the train station agent who revealed to me that Friis had a one way ticket only. Friis was en route to the United States of America, New York. He meant to never return.
This rather queer incident lead me to raadhaus where Friis lived from 1922 - 1949 with his wife and daughter. I entered the house which was still for sale by a local realtor and probably would be for a very long time. The man I met as Joek Friis had walled up every passage way in the house with brick and decorative spoons from around the world. These spoons jutted out of mortar like spacers. Several hundred of these spoons were visible from the long narrow way. Friis had turned this house into an alley way from the street to the back yard into a side street. He walled up the rooms which, rumors declare that his artworks and personal belongings are still trapped inside.
Several attempts have been made to demolish these walls but Friis being highly intuitive had the lot where his house stood stricken from the records. 411 raadhaus does not exist according to the town records. Therefore has been declared state property until it can be discovered what steps Friis took to create this inconsistency.
I talked with various citizens of Olso about Joek Friis, artist and the cold nipple of dada, who many still remember fondly by his installations and performances around the town. In my requests to see such pieces I was sadly informed time and time again they were no longer available. Apparently, in the year preceding his immigration to the United State of America, Friis had taken a mace and wandered about town destroying all traces of his work. I could not establish why until I met with Merk, a friend to the Friis family.
"Joek explained to me one morning over breakfast that someone recognized him on the street and asked him to perform right then. This insulted Joek to a point; he was certainly not a novelty. It was that morning that the family decided to move. He asked me for my mace; I am a local historian of Norse culture so I happened to have such things. Incidentally, this one here was the mace in question. It was my friends' attempt to purge himself out of the mindset of public here."
The story ends there. The only thing that remains of native Norwegian Dada Joek Friis is the alleyway that does not exist in the eyes of the law. The more I research into Dadaism, which has recently appeared in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, France, and the United States the less I understand. It is intriguing if not frightening trend. Goodbye Joek Friis.
Aftenposten Newspaper
Joek Friis
The Cold Nipple Of Dada
