Press release -
MUNCH ART PROGRAMME 2026
BOUNDARY-BREAKING STORIES ACROSS GENERATIONS: THIS IS THE ART YEAR AT MUNCH!
Next year, MUNCH opens its doors to a programme spanning Nordic icons and today’s most innovative contemporary artists. Experience large-scale installations, unexpected retrospectives, and interactive encounters with art that both moves and inspires.
“In a time marked by polarisation and conflict, the museum serves as an especially important public space. We are proud to present a programme that gives visibility and space to a wide range of vital artistic voices in 2026—voices we hope will help shape the cultural conversation. I am particularly proud to highlight John Savio in collaboration with the Savio Museum in Kirkenes. At the same time, we present groundbreaking international artists such as Katharina Grosse and Paula Rego,” says MUNCH Director Tone Hansen.
Oslo-based Kim Hankyul opens the art year with his monumental SOLO OSLO installation. In April, audiences will—for the first time in the Nordic region—be able to experience the breadth of the deeply engaged, figurative work of the internationally renowned Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego (1935-2022), in the largest presentation since Tate Britain in 2021.
Summer 2026 offers a unique chance to experience Edvard Munch’s historic decorations for the Freia chocolate factory up close, as the Freia Friezes are moved from the factory canteen into MUNCH for the very first time. The exhibition creates space for conversations about the labour movement and women’s liberation in his time.
In the exhibition Munch’s Drawings, visitors can enter an immersive room where artificial intelligence connects their own digital drawings with Munch’s, shown alongside a significant selection of his graphic works—many exhibited for the first time.
Inspired by Edvard Munch’s artistic legacy, the acclaimed German artist Katharina Grosse (b.1961) invites autumn audiences to rethink their perceptions through her boundary-breaking paintings, presented in the museum’s largest gallery on the third floor.
Toward the end of the year, MUNCH presents the groundbreaking Sámi artist John Savio (1902–1938), honoured for the first time with a major retrospective featuring more than 100 works depicting Sámi culture and everyday life. Savio lived in the same era as Munch but had a far shorter career. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication and a substantial parallel public programme.
Welcome to an inspiring art year at MUNCH!
EXHIBITIONS 2026:
SOLO OSLO
Floor 3. 27.02.2026 – 17.05.2026
SOLO OSLO is a central part of MUNCH’s contemporary art programme and the museum’s commitment to a new generation of artists and mediators. Previous exhibitions have featured artists such as Sandra Mujinga and Constance Tenvik. In its fifth edition, Kim Hankyul takes over the distinctive space on the 10th floor with a new installation.
Hankyul has previously presented a number of striking installations that explore sensory encounters between technology, mythology, and emotion. At MUNCH, he has the opportunity to scale up – and this SOLO OSLO exhibition becomes his most complex and ambitious to date. Hankyul’s new work, titled Shore, refers to the threshold between sea and land, a crossing point for many migrants and a starting point for those who make their living from the ocean and beneath its surface. Shore is suspended from the ceiling and incorporates a range of technological components to create an immersive installation.
SOLO OSLO also invites a mediator to develop a public programme connected to the exhibition. Stephanie Serrano Sundby has created an independent mediation project, focusing on creating meeting places for neurodivergent young adults within the museum. Read more: Read more
PAULA REGO
DANCE AMONG THORNES
Floor 3. 24.04.2026 – 02.08.2026
Power and vulnerability, desire and anger – Paula Rego, influential political artist and feminist icon, explored these themes with a striking mix of humour and gravity. For the first time in the Nordic region, discover her vividly coloured, wildly imaginative figurative paintings in this captivating exhibition.
The Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego (1935–2022) receives her first ever large scale exhibition in the Nordic region. Her inspiration from Edvard Munch (1863–1944) is clearly visible in her colour-rich, wildly imaginative figurative paintings. Thematically, these question the complex power relations between women and men. One of her most important motifs is The Dance (1988), which has obvious links to Munch’s The Dance of Life (1899). Read more
EDVARD MUNCH AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
Floor 9. 22.05.2026 – 11.10.2026
From Freia’s canteen to MUNCH – step inside Edvard Munch’s historic decoration for the chocolate factory and explore the labour movement and women’s emancipation in his time. This exhibition offers a rare chance to see these vibrant works up close.
Edvard Munch’s large-scale paintings for the Freia chocolate factory in 1923 were the first ever decorative artworks to be commissioned for a factory. It was also the first time such works had been commissioned for a women’s canteen. With the temporary relocation of these works from Freia’s headquarters to MUNCH, it will be possible to view them at close range, together with a rich selection of sketches and other related works. Read more Read more
MUNCH´S DRAWINGS
Floor 10. 26.06.2026 – 06.12.2026
How can artificial intelligence offer new insights into MUNCH’s collection of over 7,000 drawings? Create your own digital drawings and see how AI brings up similar works from the collection.
MUNCH’s collection contains over 7,000 drawings by Edvard Munch.These fragile works are rarely exhibited, yet they reveal new and surprising aspects of Munch’s art – from humorous caricatures and grotesque details to spontaneous sketches. Now, we invite you to engage in a dialogue with Munch’s drawings through your own creativity. Read more Read more
KATHARINA GROSSE
Black Bed
Floor 3. 25.09.2026 – 31.12.2026
Katharina Grosse draws inspiration from Edvard Munch, and this exhibition connects their artistic worlds. Explore and expand your understanding of painting through Grosse's boundary-defying use of colour.
The German artist Katharina Grosse is known for breaking the frame of traditional painting. In her work, painting can appear anywhere – a canvas, a public square, by the side of a railway track, on a sandy beach – transforming nature, architecture, and especially the viewer, into part of the artwork. Using a spray gun allows her to paint quickly and responsively across surfaces and scales, giving her work a flowing, almost liquid quality.
Grosse has drawn inspiration from Edvard Munch since her student days, notably his monumental painting The Sun (1912–13), in which a dazzling sun rises over a rocky archipelago. In preparation for this exhibition, she will spend time working in Munch’s studio at Ekely in Oslo, creating new works that add another dimension to the dialogue between the two artists. Read more
JOHN SAVIO
Floor 9. 04.12.2026 – 14.03.2027
Though he lived only 36 years, Sámi artist John Savio left a lasting mark. His pioneering art captured Sámi culture and daily life, challenging discrimination and the politics of his time. The exhibition brings together nearly 100 of his works, viewed from a Sámi perspective.
John Savio (1902–38) was a groundbreaking Sámi artist who was active in the 1920s and 30s. He is especially known for his expressive woodcuts and paintings, which depicted Sámi culture and everyday life as he knew it.
Through his art, Savio challenged stereotypical and racist images of Sámi culture, and called for resistance against the discrimination and state-imposed ‘Norwegianisation’ policies of his age. This made him an important voice in the wider political movement for Sámi independence. Read more
MUNCH PUBLISHING
MUNCH Publishing produces richly illustrated catalogues that extend the museum experience with art-historical and interdisciplinary perspectives. In 2026, this includes Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory, featuring contributions from, among others, the acclaimed Norwegian writer Marta Breen. Jennifer Higgie and Erika Fatland are among the contributors to the exhibition catalogue Paula Rego – A Thorny Dance. The internationally renowned author Jamaica Kincaid writes in the catalogue Katharina Grosse – Black Bed, and the catalogue accompanying the John Savio exhibition includes contributions from several well-known writers such as Katrine Nedrejord, Sigmund Skåden, and Wanda Nanibush.
MUNCH INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME:
Works from the MUNCH collection are continuously lent out to museums worldwide. In 2026, MUNCH will collaborate on two major duo exhibitions in Germany which places Edvard Munch’s work in dialogue with artists Paula Modersohn-Becker and Maria Lassnig, in addition to several other loans.
Paula Modersohn-Becker and Edvard Munch. The Big Questions of Life opens in February at the Albertinum in Dresden. The exhibition celebrates the German artist Modersohn-Becker’s (1876–1907) 150th anniversary and will feature many of the most important works by both artists. The exhibition explores how the artists, through their expressive paintings, found artistic answers to the questions of their time concerning life, from birth to death.
In March, the show Maria Lassnig and Edvard Munch. Flow of Paint = Flow of Life opens at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, before it travels to Kunsthaus Zürich in October. The two artists do not only share an idiosyncratic use of colour as an expressive element; astonishing parallels can also be seen in the Austrian artist Lassnig (1919-2014) and Munch’s lively brushwork and unusually freeform experimentation with painting techniques.
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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.
