Ari Behn

Ari Mikael Behn (; , or ; 30 September 1972 – 25 December 2019) was a Norwegian author, playwright, and visual artist.

Known as Mikael Bjørshol until 1996, Behn achieved early literary success with his 1999 short story collection ''Trist som faen'' ("Sad as hell"), which sold about 100,000 copies. Following his 2002 marriage to Princess Märtha Louise, he wrote four novels, two short story collections, one play and a book about his wedding, and took part in other creative and artistic endeavours such as the design of a china set named "Peacock". In the 2000s and 2010s his public activity and art were met with mixed reactions in Norway, and Behn acknowledged that many people regarded him as a "fool". From 2013 until his death he was active as a visual artist, painting in a neo-expressionist tradition inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Behn's artwork, described as "highly narrative", was widely exhibited internationally in 2017–18.

From 2002 to 2017 he was married to Princess Märtha Louise, the elder child of King Harald V. Behn held no title or special status during the marriage, and remained a private citizen.

Background and early life

Behn was born as Ari Mikael Bjørshol in 1972 in Aarhus, Denmark, to Olav Bjørshol (b. 1952) and Marianne Rafaela Solberg (b. 1953), Norwegians who were both Waldorf teachers and who married in 1973. The family lived in Aarhus, then in Plymouth, England, where his father trained as a photographer, and then in Tennevoll in Northern Norway where his mother worked as a teacher at the local school from 1977 to 1978. In 1978 the family settled in Moss in South Norway. Bjørshol was baptized and confirmed in The Christian Community and attended the Waldorf School in Moss from 1979.

In 1983, his parents divorced and married a couple who had been among their friends, Jan Pahle and Tone Bjerke, who had previously been married to each other. Tone Bjerke had family connections to several prominent cultural figures; she was the daughter of the well-known poet André Bjerke, and her extended family included people like writer Jens Bjørneboe (father's cousin), actress Henny Moan (stepmother) and singer Ole Paus (stepmother's new partner). In the 2000s his parents divorced Pahle and Bjerke, and they married each other for the second time in 2007.

In the 1990s, he studied history and religion at the University of Oslo, from which he received a bachelor's degree.

Behn's original surname was ''Bjørshol'' and he was known by family and during his childhood and youth under the given name Mikael.''Fredrikstad Blad'' 24 May 2002 p. 2 ("frilansjournalist Mikael Bjørshol, som Ari Behn het under oppveksten i Moss") In 1996, he changed his name to Ari Behn when he took his maternal grandmother's maiden name. The name Behn has German origin. He had two younger siblings, Anja Sabrina and Espen, neither of whom use the name Behn. In 2009, it was made public that Behn's ''de jure'' paternal grandfather, the Tromsø lawyer Bjarne Nikolai Bjørshol, was not his biological grandfather. Behn's father met his biological father, Terje Erling Ingebrigtsen (1933–2009), a retired car mechanic from Tromsø, for the first time, but Ingebrigtsen died before Behn had a chance to meet him.

Work

Behn was a founding member of ''Den Nye Vinen'' ("The New Wine"), an anarchist artist collective announced in Oslo in 1993 that included Bertrand Bisigye, Henning Braathen, and Per Heimly