Press release -
INTERNATIONALLY CELEBRATED EXHIBITION TREMBLING EARTH COMES HOME TO MUNCH
At long last, the international success story of an exhibition, Trembling Earth, is coming home to MUNCH and opens Saturday, April 29th. Almost 400,000 people have seen the exhibition in the USA and Germany, and the New York Times included it in its list of ‘Best Exhibitions of 2023’.
The Edvard Munch exhibition Trembling Earthbecame one of the most seen exhibitions when it was shown at the Clark Art Institute in the USA in the spring of 2023. From there it travelled to Museum Barberini in Potsdam, which also reported record-breaking numbers. The exhibition has received glowing reviews in international media.
- Part of MUNCH’s task is to put Edvard Munch’s fantastic artistry out in the world,’ says Tone Hansen, Director of MUNCH. ‘The impression his work can make on people is incredible, as is his relevance to the times we live in now. We have seen that in the responses to the exhibition abroad.
The exhibition focuses on the importance of nature for Edvard Munch. As the Washington Post writes in its review: ‘Edvard Munch was so much more than The Scream. This exhibition proves it.
- Now this acclaimed exhibition is finally coming home to the Norwegian public, Hansen says, and it is a sheer delight to be able to display this side of Edvard Munch. Visitors will have the chance to discover the colourful universe of nature’s existence in Munch’s art, including the famous Aula works which are being shown in their own dedicated room.
Summer 2024 will be the Summer of Munch, with a total of six of the museum’s exhibitions centred around the artist. Read more here
- There will be a complete Edvard Munch takeover of the museum this summer, with over 300 works exhibited at the same time, spread across a total of five exhibitions. Now’s the chance to really get to know the many sides of Munch’s fantastic artistry under one roof,’ says Hansen.
About Trembling Earth:
Across eight rooms, the diversity of Munch’s nature imagery will be explored via themes such as ‘In the Forest’, ‘Cultivated Landscape’, ‘Storm and Snow’ and ‘In a Cosmic Cycle’. The exhibition ends with a specially constructed room where visitors will have a rare opportunity to see 11 of Munch’s early versions of paintings he made for the Aula assembly hall at the University of Oslo. In two of the themed rooms, Deathprod (Helge Sten) and Lost Girls (Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden) have created special sound works.
With our current understanding of humans’ relationship with nature, Munch’s vision appears more relevant than ever. In his universe, humans are not separate from nature but instead live on Earth on an equal footing with everything else. At the same time, human emotions and their livelihood are inseparable from the environment surrounding them.
Over time, Munch developed an overarching global vision that connected science, biology, Earth and cosmos together in a unified life cycle. The prints, drawing and paintings in this exhibition give us a whole new understanding of Munch’s work: an artist fascinated by people’s relationship to the Earth and its cycles. It could even be argued that his entire way of seeing the world was rooted in nature.
As well as works from MUNCH’s collection, visitors will see many rarely-exhibited works from national and international collections in Europe and the USA: Finnish National Gallery Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki, Canica Art Collection, Dallas Museum of Art, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, National Museum, Oslo, Hasso Plattner Collection, Christen Sveaas’s Art Collection, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, and various private collections.
A MUSICAL COLLABORATION
In connection with the exhibition, MUNCH has teamed up with the Norwegian record label Smalltown Supersound. There will be various live events as well as the release of a double LP called Jordsvingninger(the exhibition’s Norwegian title), on which 18 musicians have created tracks inspired by some of the artworks in the exhibition.
CATALOGUE
The world-famous Scottish author Ali Smith has written a new essay for the exhibition catalogue, which also includes texts by philosophy professor Arne Johan Vetlesen and the exhibition’s three curators Trine Otte Bak Nielsen, Jill Lloyd and Jay Clarke. The richly illustrated book reproduces all the works in the exhibition.
Trembling Earth is organised in collaboration with MUNCH, The Clark Institute in Williamstown, USA, and Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany.
More info on the webpage
Notes to editors:
Installation images and selection of works of art here
Please contact maren.lindeberg@munchmuseet for other works
120 works in total
78 paintings, 30 prints, 14 drawings, as well as three books (one loaned) and 4 periodicals from Munch’s Ekely collection.
24 of the paintings are loans, from 15 different lenders.
Categories
MUNCH is home to the world's largest collection of works by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. 22 October 2021, MUNCH will open in a brand new building on Oslo’s waterfront. The bespoke structure, designed by estudio Herreros, will house more than 26,000 works that Edvard Munch bequeathed to the City of Oslo. The museum also manages collections donated by Rolf Stenersen, Amaldus Nielsen and Ludvig Ravensberg.
The new museum will trace the artist’s profound influence both on modern art and on artists through to the present day. Alongside displays of iconic artworks from the renowned permanent collection, temporary exhibitions will show Edvard Munch’s lasting influence in his own contemporary society, as well as on today’s generation of artists.
Visitors will experience the highlights of Edvard Munch’s oeuvre, in parallel with a wide-ranging programme of cultural events and experiences for visitors of all ages. From its location in Bjørvika, with unparalleled views of the Oslo Fjord, the museum will offer an extensive program of art and cultural experiences across thirteen floors.
