Press release -
THIS IS MUNCH IN 2024
DESIRE, CREATIVE ENERGY AND A TREMBLING EARTH
Enjoy a close encounter with Edvard Munch's delicate, trembling and above all powerful images of nature, and explore what it means to be human today. Whether it’s well known or unknown artists, historical or contemporary, MUNCH connects with the present day and addresses questions that are most important to us now. This is MUNCH in 2024!
‘MUNCH is a meeting place for everyone, with a relevant and varied arts and culture programme. We are hugely looking forward to offering a range of unique experiences in 2024, including art, music, debates and talks, not to mention our comprehensive programme for children and young people. Our goal is to challenge the idea of what a museum can be, to make art important and relevant to even more people,’ says Tone Hansen, Director of MUNCH.
In this year's programme, MUNCH is unveiling seven exciting new exhibitions that in different ways explore the human mind, nature and our place in the world. In 2024, the public can look forward to wide-ranging presentations that give new perspectives on Edvard Munch's art. In Edvard Munch Horizons, Munch will be placed in dialogue with other internationally renowned artists. Meanwhile, his powerful nature motifs will come to the fore when the international blockbuster Trembling Earthcomes home to Norway.
For children, there will be magic and mystery in the interactive exhibition Sophie's Room, created by artists Roza Moshtaghi and Ronak Moshtaghi.
The autumn art season starts fresh with a journey through the spiritual universe of Arif – one of Norway's most prominent rap artists. You can also meet the up-and-coming young artist Constance Tenvik in the fourth instalment of our popular SOLO OSLO series. During the autumn, one of the foremost visual artists of our time, Vanessa Baird, fills the museum's third floor with her ‘everyday art’, and her perpetually skewed view of the world and the people who live in it.
MUNCH Live presents many different concerts, the performance programme continues, and there will be conversations with innovative and exciting artists and musicians.
Check out 2024 all Exhibitions:
CORPUS INFINITUM
Exhibition dates: 10.02.24 - 26.05.24
Floor 9
Denise Ferreira da Silva is one of the most important philosophers of our time. Together with film maker Arjuna Neumann, she has made several films over the past decade that attempt to look at the world from a broader perspective than humanity’s alone. How can we think differently about the world? Are there alternatives to the West's destructive exploitation of the world's resources? Through three films, this exhibition explores our planet as an infinite community of species.
Edvard Munch Horizons
Exhibition opens: 13.04.24 - New Collection Exhibition. Floor 11
Edvard Munch's life and career coincided with a period of great changes in art. Towards the end of the 19th century and into the first half of the 20th, many artists were exploring alternative ways of depicting both the visible world and the inner life. In this exhibition, visitors can experience some of the most important trends in art during Munch's time. Modern urban life created a sense of distance and confusion, with nature as a dreamlike retreat. Munch and other artists of his time explored these feelings and longings. Edvard Munch Horizons presents selected trends in European art between roughly 1880–1950. It juxtaposes Munch's work with that of European artists such as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Alexej von Jawlensky, Emil Nolde, Oscar Kokoschka, Else Alfelt, Asger Jorn, Gabriele Münter, Erich Heckel and Raoul Dufy, and Norwegian artists such as Gustav Vigeland, Henrik Sørensen, Ludvig Karsten, Håkon Bjærke, Erik Harry Johannessen, Olaf Lange, Bjarne Engebret, Axel Revold, Per Krohg, Rolf Nesch, Sigurd Winge, Olav Strømme, Reidar Aulie, Arne Ekeland, Jakob Weidemann, Kai Fjell and Teddy Røwde.
Sophie’s Room
Is a secret room. But you have found your way here
Exhibition dates: 22.03.24–18.08.24. Floor 10
In March, the museum's 10th floor will be transformed into an enigmatic, monochrome landscape with grand architectural and scenographic elements, including a fountain of black, spouting liquid. Children and their parents/guardians will be encouraged to take over the space and interact with it. The magnetic walls are covered with dark shapes derived from Edvard Munch's paintings that can be rearranged to create new images, stories and patterns. Come into Sofie's Room, a sensory experience made for and with children. Sophie's room is the third in MUNCH's series of ambitious and immersive art installations for children, ‘Come Think with Us!’.
Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth
Exhibition dates: 27.04.24 – 25.08.24. Floor 3
At last, Trembling Earth has finally arrived in Norway. The exhibition, exploring Edvard Munch’s relationship with nature and the cosmos, set visitor records when it was shown at the Clark Art Institute in the USA last spring, and travelled from there to the Barberini Museum in Potsdam. On 18 November it opens at MUNCH. The exhibition has received rave reviews from the international press, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe.
Arif x Munch
Exhibition dates: 21.08.24 – 3.12.24. Floor 9
Join us on a journey through the spiritual universe of one of Norway's most prominent rap artists, Arif Murakami. Experience groundbreaking art, music, literature, film and set design. This immersive journey tells Arif's story in a style inspired by Edvard Munch. American film maker and artist Andrew Thomas Huang is responsible for the fusion of Arif's and Munch's worlds.
The Arif x Munchexhibition will be augmented by an ambitious live programme.
SOLO OSLO Constance Tenvik
Exhibition dates: 25.08.24 – 26.01.25. Floor 10
Now comes the latest instalment of the popular SOLO OSLO series. Audiences can look forward to immersing themselves in artist Constance Tenvik's ‘worlds within worlds’ consisting of paintings, drawings, sculptures, performances, textiles, costumes and videos. The artist likes to tackle big themes, often based on literature. For her solo exhibition at MUNCH, Aristophanes' ancient comedy The Birds provides the backdrop for a brand new installation set in the present day. Here, the world is divided into three parts, and two humans challenge the gods by attempting to take control of the air with the help of birds.
‘I think it's a good moment to make fun of an imperialistic mindset, while at the same time finding joy in escapism and acknowledging the human desire that’s being expressed,’ Tenvik wrote in her application to become the fourth SOLO OSLOartist.
SOLO OSLO is a series of solo exhibitions and related interpretation projects supported by Talent Norway and Canica. With SOLO OSLO, MUNCH is investing in the new generation of artists and communicators who will be closely mentored by the museum's professional staff.
Vanessa Baird: From One Day to Another
Exhibition dates: 12.10.24 – 31.12.24. Floor 3
Since the 1990s, Vanessa Baird has made her mark as one of the foremost visual artists of our time. In her first exhibition at MUNCH, she fills the large hall on the museum's third floor with more than 500 hard-hitting works.
The exhibition shows how Baird's art develops through repetition and variations on the same themes, and how it is shaped by private and political events. Baird has been creating ‘kitchen sink’ art for decades, amid the chaos of everyday life with her children and ageing mother, but always engaging with the world outside her intimate sphere. In particular, she has dealt with the refugee disaster and the war in Ukraine in several of her late watercolours, in which the artist herself is depicted as powerless among the atrocities.
The title From One Day to Another refers to the repetitive nature of our lives, as well as how drastic events can completely change our everyday lives from one day to the next.
MUNCH Live
Showcasing contemporary art is also about making space for artworks that are not exhibited in the traditional way, and creating free spaces for artistic expression and the exchange of views. MUNCH Live presents several concerts, and our performance art programme continues. There will also be conversations with a number of innovative artists and musicians.
MUNCH continues the newly launched MEGAMONSTERMUSEUM? – a series of conversations about the role of the art museum in the 21st century featuring international museum leaders. The music programme celebrates and explores sound – from innovative pop to cutting-edge jazz and experimental hiphop. MUNCH also continues its collaboration with the Norwegian music festival Øya, and invites to a new season of the Jazz at MUNCH series.
Through MUNCH's focus on performance art, audiences will have the opportunity to experience new commissioned works that explore the intersection between visual art, dance and music. Each year, artists are invited to develop new performance works that respond to MUNCH's distinctive spaces. In 2024, MUNCH is developing new works with artists such as Kiyoshi Yamamoto and Daniel Mariblanca.
Children and Young Adults
2024 sees the launch of an inspiring and engaging programme for younger visitors, which will provide insight into the practically infinite possibilities and mindsets that art can give. At MUNCH, we want children’s and young people's art experiences to play a central role, and to let them encounter art on their own terms. 2024 includes a number of art days for families with children, and creative workshops every Sunday. MUNCH also offer playful guided tours. The MUNCH Young programme puts young people themselves in the driver's seat.
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.
