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Saturday 14 June at 13.00, Kistefos opens this year’s Springbrett exhibition, Ring of Fire! Springbrett is an annual open call, which gives a young curator the opportunity to realise an exhibition concept based on works from the Christen Sveaas Art Foundation. This year’s exhibition is Ring of Fire curated by Liv Brissach. The exhibition takes the formal elements of the tectonic phenomenon The Pacific Ring of Fire as its starting point – the fire and the circle – to platform artistic investigations of fire and destruction, and their relationship to cyclicality today. The exhibition includes work from Christen Sveaas Art Foundation by Olafur Eliasson, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Robin Rhode, as well as new commissions and loans by artists Nikhil Vettukattil, Elina Waage Mikalsen and Lesia Vasylchenko. Springbrett in collaboration with Christen Sveaas Art Foundation supports young curatorial talent and is generously supported by Sparebankstiftelsen DNB. The opening ceremony will be at 13.00 outside Nybruket Gallery. On the same day, Kistefos presents the performative work Tragedy by artist and choreographer Louis Schou-Hansen in The Twist. Both events are free for everyone who has a ticket to the museum on this day. If you are going and have a ticket, a complimentary bus from Oslo to Kistefos is available. Please let us know if you would like to reserve a seat on the bus via post@kistefosmuseum.com. Please note, spaces are limited, and your reservation is binding. The bus will depart from Radisson Blu Holbergs Plass, Oslo, at 11.30 and return from Kistefos at 16.30. The bus will drive directly to MUNCH, who are hosting the site-specific performance Undersang by Harald Beharie that same evening at 20.00. Read more about these events on our website. @christensveaasart @sparebankstiftelsendnb #springbrett

Forecast: rain 🌧️ Mood: Christina Quarles 🤩 We’re open tomorrow from 10 AM to 5 PM – and with rain on the way, it’s the ideal opportunity to experience Living in the Wake, the first major solo exhibition in Norway by acclaimed American artist Christina Quarles. Staged in our iconic gallery, The Twist, the exhibition offers a comprehensive survey of Quarles’ work and features two brand new paintings made especially for the show. Known for her fluid, dynamic figuration, Quarles explores the instability of identity and the complexity of embodiment. Her work challenges fixed ideas of race, gender, and sexuality—creating spaces where the self can be fragmented, overlapping, and constantly remade. As the artist notes, it’s about “what it is to be in a body, what it is to move through the world in a body… and having parts of yourself that contradict that legibility.” 📍 The Twist 🕙 Open tomorrow 10:00–17:00 🎟️ Tickets at kistefosmuseum.com or at the entrance 📸 Vegard Kleven #christinaquarles @christensveaasart @cequarles #artexhibition #thetwist #artsunday

Performance: Louis Schou-Hansen at Kistefos ✨ On Saturday 14 June, Kistefos presents artist and choreographer Louis Schou-Hansen’s (b. 1992, DK) performative work 'Tragedy' in The Twist. The performance is ongoing between 14:00 and 16:30. Audiences are welcome to enter and leave the room as they please during this time and spend as much time as they wish with the work. 'Tragedy' is an all-consuming space, where two miserable fictional characters enact a slow, endlessly looping nightmare. This dreamscape takes the form of an entrapment—a labyrinth without walls—where Western cultural tropes from the Baroque until today take shape as disordered compulsions: from lap dances and cowboy fantasies to still lives and court ballets. Schou-Hansen’s work explores the body and its surroundings as a complex network of Western fictions, drawing on the writing of artist and theorist Alina Popa, who wrote in one of her final essays: “The body is real, but what we think about it is fiction.” At Kistefos, the performance will activate and enter into dialogue with this year’s exhibition in The Twist, Living in the Wake, by American artist Christina Quarles — whose paintings also explore the body and its cultural and social status. The performance coincides with the opening of Springbrett 2025. Both events are free with a museum ticket on this day. 🚍 A complimentary bus from Oslo to Kistefos is available for ticket holders. To reserve a seat, please email post@kistefos.com — spaces are limited and reservations are binding. The bus departs from Radisson Blu Holbergs Plass, Oslo at 11:30 and returns from Kistefos at 16:30, heading directly to @munchmuseum for Harald Beharie’s site-specific performance 'Undersang' at 20:00. @krusedullesunivers #performanceart #springbrett #performance #kunstopplevelse #kunst #performancekunst

🍋 Kathleen Ryan’s iconic Bad Fruit sculptures — represented here by Bad Lemon (Old Money) — depict decadent fruits overtaken by passages of shimmering gemstone mould. These works interrogate cycles of value and decline, while hinting at regeneration and the imaginative potential of re-use. Ryan’s practice is deeply material-focused, juxtaposing the synthetic and the organic, the mass-produced and the handcrafted. Each component is imbued with symbolic and cultural meaning. Her sculptures are layered with time: the labour of making overlaid onto the histories of the objects themselves. Bad Lemon (Old Money), 2023 Materials include serpentine, aventurine, amazonite, mother of pearl, freshwater pearl, and vintage jewelry – all pinned to polystyrene. On view in Nybruket Gallery and The Wood Pulp Mill at Kistefos until 12 October. Photo: Tor Simen Ulstein #kathleenryan @katieryankatieryan #badfruit #beads #pearls #glemstoneart #beautyindecay #kistefos #sculptureexhibition

Kistefos congratulates! 🌟 Nairy Baghramian, this year’s sculptor at Kistefos, has been selected as a medalist in the inaugural Art Basel Awards—a recognition of her influence in shaping the future of art. This award honors visionaries—individuals and organizations—who are defining the direction of contemporary art. ⁠ Selected by a distinguished international jury, Baghramian is celebrated for her profound impact and innovation across sculpture and conceptual practice.⁠ Swipe to see the jury members 👉🏻 ⁠ The award acknowledges visionaries—both individuals and organisations—who are actively defining the direction of the art world today.⁠ ⁠ The medalists will be honoured at Art Basel in Basel this June.⁠ ⁠ #nairybaghramian #artbasel #artbaselawards #contemporaryart #sculpture #artnews @artbasel @christensveaasart

Happy Norwegian Constitution Day! 🇳🇴 Wishing everyone a joyful 17th of May celebration! 🎉 Please note: Kistefos is closed today but open again tomorrow from 10 AM to 5 PM. We look forward to welcoming you! ❤️

The forecast says sunshine for the foreseeable future! ☀️ So maybe now’s the perfect time to finally take that trip to Kistefos you’ve been talking about? 😉 This year’s exhibitions – Christina Quarles: Living in the Wake and Kathleen Ryan – have both received glowing reviews. Definitely worth a visit! Bringing kids? Don’t forget a towel. They will end up running through this fountain 😅💦☀️ Temptations await in the café! If you’re clever, you’ll pre-order a picnic basket to enjoy in the park at kp@kistefoskafe.no. You won’t regret it! 🧺 We’re open Tuesday to Friday from 11–17, and weekends from 10–17. (Closed on Constitution Day 17 May) See you at Kistefos! ❤️ #sculpturepark #bestofnorway #norway #norwaytravel #visiteastnorway #visitoslo #visitnorway

Swipe through highlights from the Opening Day! 📸 It’s already been a week since we kicked off the 2025 season – and what a week it has been, with strong reviews of this year’s exhibitions in NRK, Morgenbladet, and Kunstavisen 🙏🏻 We hope you’ll plan a visit (or three) this season to see it all for yourself 🥰 Photos: Creative Mill 1. From left to right: Artist Christina Quarles, Christen Sveaas, Chair of the Board Camilla Magnus, Director Kari Roll-Matthiesen, Curator Kate Smith. 2. Christen Sveaas and artist Kathleen Ryan officially open her exhibition. 3. Curator Kate Smith, Director Kari Roll-Matthiesen, artist Kathleen Ryan, Christen Sveaas, and curator Jasper Sharp. 4. Artist Nairy Baghramian and Christen Sveaas at the unveiling of Nairy’s new sculpture. 5. William Flatmo, Director of the Christen Sveaas Art Foundation and curator of the sculpture park, gave a speech prior to the unveiling. 6. Ready, set, unveil! With help from William Flatmo and Christen Sveaas. 7. Christen Sveaas greets this year’s new sculpture, Resting Arms by Nairy Baghramian. 8. Director Kari Roll-Matthiesen, Christen Sveaas, artist Nairy Baghramian, and William Flatmo. 9. Director Kari Roll-Matthiesen during the official opening ceremony. 10. Christen Sveaas and Chair of the Board Camilla Magnus cut the ribbon to mark the official opening of the 2025 season! #seasonopening #christinaquarles #kathleenryan #nairybahgramian #kistefos

Resting Arms by Nairy Baghramian - New permanent sculpture at Kistefos ✨ Kistefos is proud to present Resting Arms by Iranian-born, German artist Nairy Baghramian – the 56th permanent addition to the sculpture park. As William Flatmo, Director of Christen Sveaas' Art Collection and Curator of the Sculpture Park, noted in his opening speech, Baghramian moves the joints from their typical orientation, allowing them to rest and to recover from the stress and impact of daily use. The sculpture’s two blocks of marble are heavily veined and pitted on their surface, suggesting fragility, sensitivity, and, in the artist’s own words, ‘possible collapse’. This gesture of rest implies that labour has already taken place—a quiet nod to the history of the Kistefos pulp mill workers. At the same time, Resting Arms reflects on what labour and leisure mean today, when physical work is increasingly replaced by screens and digital interfaces. Installed on newly opened terrain at the south entrance—previously occupied by a high-voltage line—the work stands as a symbol of repair and regeneration, of giving space to nature, to people, and to art. As William Flatmo noted in his opening speech: “What this work becomes is not just about the site-specific, but the sculpture as engine of a collaborative place-making – in a spirit of repair and a philosophy of care.” 📍Unveiled 4 May 2025 📸: Vegard Kleven / Kistefos #nairybaghramian #sculptures #sculpturepark

Kistefos is proud to present the first major museum survey of American sculptor Kathleen Ryan. Following its debut at Hamburger Kunsthalle in 2024, the exhibition opened at Kistefos on 4 May 2025 and will be on view throughout the season. It spans two of our industrial-era gallery venues – Nybruket Gallery and Tresliperiet – marking the first time a single exhibition occupies both spaces. The exhibition brings together 25 sculptures created between 2014 and 2024, showcasing a decade of Ryan’s innovative practice. Her large-scale, meticulously crafted sculptures explore themes of decay, desire, excess, and transformation. They juxtapose the synthetic and the organic, the mass-produced and the handmade, and often incorporate found objects such as bowling balls, chandelier fittings, or rusted car bonnets alongside glittering semi-precious stones and traditional sculptural materials. Several major bodies of work are represented, including reclining concrete Bacchantes that reference classical mythology, cast iron calipers suspended in mid-measurement, hand-modelled ceramic birds arranged in solemn clusters, and Ryan’s iconic “Bad Fruit” sculptures – overripe fruit forms encrusted with gemstone mould. Together, these works interrogate cycles of value and decline while hinting at the potential for renewal and imaginative reuse. Curated by Jasper Sharp and Kate Smith. 📍 Kathleen Ryan – museum survey 📅 4 May – 12 October 2025 🏛 Nybruket Gallery & Tresliperiet, Kistefos Photo: Tor S. Ulstein/KUNSTDOK 1. Deluxe, 2023. Courtesy of Christen Sveaas Art Collection 2. Pearls, 2017 3. Mother of Pearl, 2019 4. Hanging Fruit, 2018 5. Bacchante, 2017 6. Untitled (Chandelier), 2015. Courtesy of Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody

Christina Quarles – Living in the Wake is now open at Kistefos. This solo exhibition is on view from 4 May to 12 October 2025. 'Living in the Wake' is the first major solo exhibition in Norway by acclaimed American artist Christina Quarles (b. 1985). Staged within the architectural landmark The Twist, the exhibition offers a comprehensive survey of Quarles’ work and includes two entirely new paintings created specifically for the show. Quarles is widely celebrated for her fluid, dynamic figuration that grapples with the instability of identity and the complexity of embodiment. Her work challenges the boundaries of legibility and representation, creating spaces where the self can be fragmented, overlapping, and constantly remade. As the artist notes: “There’s these larger overarching narratives of the work about what it is to be in a body, what it is to move through the world in a body, what it is to contend with wanting to have people be able to immediately read you, but then having parts of yourself that contradict that legibility or undermine that experience.” 'Living in the Wake' unfolds across the full span of The Twist, guiding visitors through a series of thematically arranged galleries that examine Quarles’ evolving visual and conceptual language. The exhibition includes 23 works, spanning new and recent paintings, selected loans from institutions and private collections, and four significant works from the Christen Sveaas Art Foundation and Art Collection. Key themes include identity and intersectionality, the body as a landscape, and architectonic anatomy. These are explored through contorted, layered figures and spatial compositions that destabilize fixed ideas of race, gender, and physical presence. With Living in the Wake, Christina Quarles invites us to confront the complexity of living in a body that resists easy definitions. Curated by Kate Smith. Foto: Vegard Kleven #christinaquarles #artexhibition #paintings #art #identity #dynamicfigurative #christensveaasart @christensveaasart @visiteastnorway @visitoslo @visitnorway @cequarles

Finally! Kistefos is now officially open for the season, and we kicked things off with an amazing opening day. A huge thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us! 🎉 We’re proud to have opened two new exhibitions – Christina Quarles: Living in the Wake and Kathleen Ryan – and to have unveiled this year’s new sculpture: Resting Arms by Nairy Baghramian. Plan a visit this summer and experience bold new artworks, world-class architecture, and our unique sculpture park set in stunning natural surroundings. See you soon! 🥰 Video: @creative_mill #kistefos #christensveaasart #christinaquarles #kathleenryan #nairybaghramian @christensveaasart @visiteastnorway @visitoslo @visitnorway