Lars Vilks

Lars Vilks
Lars Vilks at the site of Nimis in Kullaberg
Born	Lars Endel Roger Vilks Lanat (1946-06-20) 20 June 1946 (age 70) Helsingborg, Sweden
Nationality	Swedish
Known for	Conceptual art Sculpture
Notable work	Nimis (1980) Arx (1991) Muhammad drawings (2007)

Lars Endel Roger Vilks Lanat (born 20 June 1946) is a Swedish artist, Doctor of Philosophy, and activist who garnered fame for his drawings of Muhammad, which resulted in at least two failed attempts by Islamic extremists to murder him. He is also known for his sculptures, Nimis and Arx, made entirely of drift wood, and the small area where the sculptures are located which was proclaimed by Vilks as an independent country, "Ladonia".

Vilks was born in Helsingborg, Sweden, to a Latvian father and a Swedish mother. He earned his doctoral degree in art history from Lund University in 1987, and worked at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts from 1988 to 1997. From 1997 to 2003, he was a professor in art theory at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts. As an art theorist, Vilks is a proponent of the institutional theory of art.

Although an academically trained art theorist, Vilks is a self-taught artist. In the 1970s, he started painting, and in 1984, he embarked on creating the idiosyncratic sculptures that have been his hallmark, starting with Nimis. At this time, in the early 1980s, postmodernism made its definite entry into the Swedish art scene, using inspiration from e.g. the French art philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. Conceptual artists took the place of the earlier modernists on the contemporary art scene. These conceptual artists did not want their art to have any aesthetic or programmatic content, but often focused on the artist's self. Vilks was part of this movement in Sweden. He turned himself in as a piece of art to the spring saloon at , and turned his own car into a piece of art at the fall exhibition at Skånes konstförening.