Edvard Munch: The Scream

Ever since Munch first came up with the Scream motif at the end of the 19th century, countless artists, including Andy Warhol and Marina Abramović, have modified it within their own work. In addition, the open-mouthed figure has cropped up in popular cultural productions such as Wes Craven’s Scream film franchise, the poster for the kids’ movie Home Alone, and in scores of satirical cartoons – on everything from Brexit to Donald Trump’s presidency and tax rises – as well as on innumerable political banners and placards, most recently in protests about the climate emergency. In recent years, the Scream image has also taken a prominent place on digital screens in the form of its own emoji and as the basis of countless memes. At the same time, the quantity of souvenirs and other objects decorated with or shaped like Munch’s figure of desperation has increased immeasurably. In short: these days The Scream haunts pretty much every layer of culture. It is without doubt one of the most frequently reproduced images in the history of art, equalled only perhaps by Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and is the originator of a constantly expanding network of analogue and digital mutations. Via these three texts, and a rich selection of illustrations – including all known Scream images ever made by the artist himself, a selection of his Scream texts and countless so-called Scream mutations – this book embraces Munch’s best-known image as a cultural phenomenon.

Patricia G. Berman holds the Feldberg Chair of Art at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, specialising in modern and contemporary art, photography and propaganda. She has also taught at the University of Oslo where she facilitated the research network ‘Munch, Modernism and Modernity’. Berman’s books and catalogues include studies of Edvard Munch, James Ensor, 19th-century Danish painting, gestural drawing and contemporary art. She has also curated numerous exhibitions, most recently The Experimental Self: Edvard Munch’s Photography (Scandinavia House, New York, 2017 and 2021 and Munchmuseet 2020). Berman is currently co-curating an exhibition of Nordic art and design for the Frick Museum, Pittsburgh, PA. Joanna Iranowska is a museologist with digital collections and material culture as her main fields of expertise. She holds a PhD from the University of Oslo about art museums as cultures of copies. In her thesis she focused on Munchmuseet and digital reproduction. She is also interested in actor-network theory and museum shops as arenas for reproduction. Iranowska now works as senior curator of photography at the MiA Museums in Greater Oslo, with virtual, interactive exhibitions, and is particularly interested in collections of pictures by female photographers. Øyvind Vågnes is an author and professor of media studies at the University of Bergen. In 2012 he was nominated for the Association of American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE Awards), in the media studies category, and received the Peter C. Rollins Book Award – both for Zaprudered: The Kennedy Assassination Film in Visual Culture (University of Texas Press, 2011).