When the City of Oslo demolished Gustav Vigeland’s house, they offered him a new one. In exchange, he promised all of his future artwork to the city. For the next twenty years he created 212 remarkable sculptures.
The most notable of all the sculptures is his Monolith, a 14 metre high sculpture carved from a single block of granite. More than a hundred human figures piled on top of (and climbing over) each other, it’s startling and audacious.
Vigeland himself is a divisive figure. His work has been described as having a fascist aesthetic; on the other hand, he also designed the Nobel Peace Prize medal.