New galleries and museums shoot up, programmes compete to be the most densely packed, and, occasionally, we see an inexplicable (in light of global trends) optimism and vitality when it comes to themes. Metaphors inspired by the season queue up when we set out to summarise the Norwegian art spring. But I refrain from such low-hanging verbal fruit and simply nominate “energetic” as an overarching adjective.
At Munch Museum, they’re serving up a double dose of German painting. The 86-year-old George Baselitz is first up with heftige upside-down paintings and wooden sculptures crafted with axe and chainsaw, on view from mid-February. And in April, Kerstin Brätsch will address “spiritualist, symbolist and expressive ideas about painting as a channel for spiritual energy-forces,” evincing little patience with the medium’s traditional boundaries. Restless bodies will also feature when Frida Orupabo’s disturbing collage puppets take over the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo in early February. The exhibition is her largest to date and was shown last autumn at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm.
For the Dadaists, collage was a means to allow creativity to escape the barriers of rationality and technique, and from late February one of the movement’s most renowned exponents, Jean Arp, will feature in a duo exhibition with his wife Sophie Taeuber-Arp at the Henie Onstad Art Centre, featuring both their own work and collaborations. In late June, the art centre follows up last year’s presentation of Polish textile artist Magdalena Abakanowicz with an exhibition by her younger colleague Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, where family, solidarity, and unity among Roma women are guiding themes.
The National Museum of Norway takes over the historically wide-ranging Gothic Modern from Ateneum in Helsinki in late February. The exhibition pairs works by major names like Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh, and Käthe Kollwitz with art from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to demonstrate the influence of the Gothic on modern art from the late 1800s and early 1900s. In April, A K Dolven will become the first Norwegian artist to exhibit in the Light Hall. It will be a retrospective with works from the late 1980s to the present, likely both pathos-filled and existentially probing.
Incidentally, Dolven will also have an exhibition at the Frogner gallery OSL Contemporary in tandem with her retrospective at the National Museum. But before that, Mickael Marman is ready with his first exhibition at the gallery in mid-March, where self-conscious and laid-back painting à la Frankfurt will likely be on offer. While we’re in Frogner, it’s worth mentioning that painter Fredrik Værslev is opening his own gallery in the area – Bygdøy Allé, to be precise – with the unbeatable name Allé Allé. The first exhibition is planned for March, but details are currently being kept under wraps. By the way, rumour has it that artist Ida Ekblad also has a new gallery in the works, though no opening date has been confirmed.
Kunstnernes Hus wins the prize for most energetic programme with seven exhibitors this spring! Admittedly, this includes façade installations (Andrea Geyer) and performances (Eszter Salamon), but still. The headliners, who get to occupy the two main exhibition halls on the second floor, are Jannik Abel, whose exhibition Back to the Land – where numerous tree branches form what the artist describes as “a space for reflection, grief, silence, dialogue, reunion, and community” – has already opened, and Steinar Haga Kristensen, who in May promises us two identical (!) solo exhibitions under the same roof. Additionally, these will frame the performance of Kristensen’s newly written musical theatre piece. The season concludes in a darker tone in June with a revenge fantasy by Tuda Muda, dealing with the topic of sexual violence.
Young Artists’ Society (UKS) announced last autumn that it’s moving away from the solo exhibition format to focus on a more community-oriented model with lower thresholds and higher turnover of exhibitors. An important professional launch pad is thus lost for young artists, although the institution’s reasoning is sympathetic. However, the changes won’t take effect until 2026, and in early February, Irish-Palestinian Nora Adwan is ready with her first major solo exhibition in Oslo, where she’ll address diasporic grief – a phenomenon of, alas, inexhaustible relevance.
Bergen Kunsthall is in lighter spirits and is giving the world’s collapse an optimistic spin with the group exhibition Everything Is So Alive! from late January. Inspired by theorist Jack Halberstam’s concept of “unworlding,” the exhibition sees the breakdown of the existing order as “a moment for new beginnings.” At Bergen gallery Høyersten Contemporary, there will be a moment of “witchcraft and Nordic darkness” with the duo exhibition of Eirik Falckner & Gabriel Johann Kvendseth from mid-March, before Maya Stefania Wibling, inspired by myths and ecofeminism, brings a “bright view of the future.” Also in Bergen, Kode (celebrating its two-hundredth anniversary) has embarked on a series of presentations of Norwegian artists with connections to Western Norway and Bergen. In April, it’s Lotte Konow Lund’s turn with a retrospective that centres her preoccupation with “art’s role as a socially oriented practice.”
Two new museums are seeing the light of day this spring. In late February, the Northern Norwegian Museum of Art opens a new branch in Bodø with the exhibition Everything Speaks – Stories in Motion, where a selection of artworks from the museum’s collection from the 1800s to the present is organised under evocative themes such as “Fish, Gender and Sexuality.” A week earlier in Trondheim you can partake in the opening of Posten Moderne, or PoMo. The museum, residing in a former post office, is built around the Reitan family’s collection and joins Norway’s growing number of private museums. The opening exhibition, Postcards from the Future, promises to restore the building’s historical function as a medium for “a living dialogue with the world,” with help from artists such as Monira Al Qadiri, James Lee Byars, Isa Genzken, Anne Imhof, and Sandra Mujinga.
Later that month, Kunsthall Trondheim features three dreamlike film installations by Sin Wai Kin, and in April there will be more film plus 3D-printed clay sculptures from Liv Bugge, in an exhibition that makes a critical point about greenwashing in the energy sector. Bugge’s exhibition is part of the Hannah Ryggen Triennale, which spreads across several exhibition venues in the city and is devoted to the themes of motherhood, ecology, and craft traditions. Others participating in the triennale include Damien Ajavon and Ingrid Viksmo with solo exhibitions at Trøndelag senter for samtidskunst and Trondhjem kunstforening, respectively, while Trondheim Art Museum is host to the group exhibition Passing Motherhood, featuring Athena Farrokhzad, Basma Al-Sharif, Elise Storsveen, Gitte Dæhlin, Käthe Kollwitz, Louise Bourgeois, and Thora Dolven Balke, among others.
In February, Haugar Kunstmuseum in Tønsberg puts on a show with German artist and sociologist Charlotte Posenenske’s modular sculptures. In May, the museum will celebrate its thirty-year anniversary with the group exhibition Just a Dog, which aims to shed light on issues that many art institutions grapple with today, juxtaposing historical works from the collection – undoubtably including Kjartan Slettemark’s iconic poodle performance – with contemporary works by the likes of Jennie Bringaker and Ingerid Kuiters. Fotogalleriet in Oslo is also concerned with institutional issues and starts the year with an ‘exhibition’ that generously lets the audience steal a peek at their ongoing reorganisation process, which aims at a “resetting and updating of the very mechanisms through which [they] operate.”
In June, Taterlandet will open at Nitja senter for samtidskunst in Lillestrøm and Guttormsgaards arkiv at Blaker. The exhibition – with contributions from Elias Akselsen, Viola Karlsen, Lillebet Foss, and Ivan Storm Juliussen, to name a few – is a celebration of Romani culture and craftsmanship and promises new artistic productions, open workshops, and an extensive event programme. During the same period, you can visit the 13th edition of the Momentum Biennial at Gallery F 15 in Moss, which with its ultra-local and sonic focus invites visitors to zoom in on Jeløya’s picturesque landscape – and perhaps hear the bumblebees buzz.
