Doors: 18:30
The event is held in Norwegian.
The Sky Room has limited capacity, so please arrive early to ensure a seat. Remember to set aside time to put away bags, umbrellas and liquids in the lockable wardrobe in the lobby. Tickets that have not been scanned within 15 minutes before start can be given to drop-in guests.
Please note that the event is being filmed. Crew can direct you to seats outside of the filmed area upon request.
Through this series, MUNCH invites key practitioners in the field, who are rethinking the role of the museum, to bring their unique perspectives to Oslo.
We ask:
How can art museums be relevant public arenas for discussion? How can we contribute meaningfully to the artistic ecosystem? How can large-scale institutions operate sustainably with transparency and kindness? How can we include marginalized groups and develop new voices? What is the role of the curatorial in museums, and how can we nurture experimentation whilst retaining long-term research perspectives?
Art museums are part of an ecosystem of smaller and mid-size art institutions, galleries, and individual artists and practitioners. In Norway, a number of museums were consolidated after the government’s museum reform of 2003. That meant more power and financial resources distributed across fewer institutions. This has strengthened the economy of some museums, but it has also entailed shifts in power dynamics, greater bureaucracy, and expectations of higher visitor numbers.
Since the move from Tøyen to Bjørvika, MUNCH has wanted to challenge what a museum can be. The contemporary art project Munchmuseet on the Move (2015–2020) formed a bridge between the old and the new museum. It was collaborative and inspired by the artist-initiated Prosjekt i Gamlebyen (PiG) from 1994. As a two-year-old institution on the waterfront of Bjørvika, with a greater mandate from the City of Oslo, it is more important than ever to discuss the role of the museum. MUNCH would like to continue to acknowledge and support the crucial work of promoting art in the city and provide artists with the opportunity to develop new projects. MUNCH sees that the precarious studio situation in Oslo is a major challenge for the possibilities for artists to live and work in the city.
Several institutions in Oslo have contributed to the programming, including UKS – the Young Artists’ Association, Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), Oslo Kunstforening, Nitja, Fotogalleriet, Podium, Kunstnernes Hus and The Norwegian Association of Curators.
Jan Brockmann (b. 1935 in Berlin) was the first director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo, a position he held from 1988 to 1996. Terskel (“threshold”) was a keyword under Brockmann’s leadership, and gave name to both the museum’s opening exhibitions and publication series. In the early 1990s, the Museum of Contemporary Art presented a number of cutting-edge group exhibitions including In Site – new British sculpture (1993) and Transit – new art from Switzerland, (1993/94) featuring, among others, Pipilotti Rist. In addition, the museum held solo exhibitions with established international artists such as Christian Boltanski and Ilya Kabakov (both 1994), while dedicating an experimental space (Eksperimentrommet) to site-specific installations of younger Norway-based artists.
Brockmann has considerable teaching experience. In 1961, he was hired as a lecturer at the Norwegian teacher training college in Trondheim. In 1970, he was made an assistant professor in aesthetics at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim, where he was later made professor at the institute for form and colour. From 2000 to 2004, he held the Henrik Steffens professorship in Nordic cultural studies at the Humboldt Universität in Berlin.
In 2005, Brockmann was awarded the Order of St Olav for his contribution to culture. From 2005 to 2011, he was an advisor to the Bergen International Festival.
Tone Hansen was appointed as director of MUNCH in October 2022. Under her leadership, the museum has further developed its extensive exhibition program, offering new approaches to the museum's three artistic areas of focus: the work of Edvard Munch, modernism, and contemporary art. Recent exhibitions include “Alice Neel: Every Person is a New Universe,” “Goya and Munch. Modern Prophecies,” “Corpus Infinitum” with Arjuna Neuman and Denise Ferreira da Silva, and “Trembling Earth.
From 2011 to 2022 Hansen was the director of the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. Here, she was responsible for a comprehensive rehabilitation of the building and the establishment of an exhibition program including well-known artists such as Pablo Picasso, Niki de Saint Phalle, Marc Chagall, Yayoi Kusama and Nikolai Astrup, Sami artist Nils Aslak Valkeapä, and the graphic artist and feminist icon Zdenka Rusova, as well as group exhibitions such as “We are Living on a Star” and “Every Moment Counts- AIDSand its feelings”. The diverse and cross-disciplinary programme drew on different perspectives, avant-garde and contemporary approaches. She is the editor of several anthologies and artist monographs.
From 2016 to 2019, Hansen was chair of the Arts Council Norway. She chaired the board of PoMo - Posten Moderne museum in Trondheim until mid-2023, and has held several other board positions in Scandinavia. Hansen was educated at the Academy of Fine Art in Oslo (1994–1998) and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts as a scholar (equivalent to a PhD) from 2003 to 2009. Hansen was born in 1970 in Kirkenes (Norway/Sápmi), grew up in Klæbu (now Trondheim), and currently resides in Oslo.
©Tom Henning Bratlie, Klassekampen
