I have often thought about how exciting and demanding it must be to work as a curator at the Munch Museum. On the one hand, you have the enormous privilege of conveying Munch’s rich heritage at all times, from which it is almost impossible to create bad exhibitions as a starting point. At the same time, there is no doubt that it must be challenging to constantly come up with excellent new ones. and exciting perspectives on the same artistry. Sometimes Munch’s artistic strength can become the museum’s weakness, like an eternal resting pillow. While I am reading about the exhibition “Jordsvingninger” on the way to the Munch Museum, I wonder if this exhibition might not be an example of just this. FOCUS ON NATURE’S CYCLE: Munch was concerned with nature’s cycle, fertility and the changes of the seasons. Especially after the turn of the century, the images were characterized by something life-affirming and nature-loving. He focused less on the anxious. Photo: The Munch Museum / Ove Kvavik THE SUN: As part of the prestigious assignment to decorate the university’s hall, Munch painted the sun, as an explosion of light and colour. Photo: Munch Museum BATHING MAN: Between 1907 and 1908, Munch lived in the small German town of Warnemünde by the Baltic Sea. Here he painted beach life, and not least strong, well-trained bathing men. Photo: The Munch Museum / Ove Kvavik At the beginning of the 20th century, this type of bathing motif became very popular. People feared the negative impact of industrialism on man and believed that swimming in the sea and sun drying on the rocks had a very beneficial effect on both soul and body. Photo: The Munch Museum / Ove Kvavik Not the first time that nature is a theme I am surprised that the museum writes on its website that it is the first time that the role of nature in Munch’s art has been highlighted. This is obviously wrong. I can at least remember two exhibitions from recent years with this as a focus. In 2012, the museum showed the exhibition “Feelings for snow”, which focused on Munch’s winter landscapes. Two years later, they created the exhibition “Through nature”, where Munch was seen in a natural history perspective. BEACH: The meandering shoreline forms a visual chorus in Munch’s artistry. Photo: The Munch Museum Most people with some familiarity with Munch are aware that nature plays a very important role in his pictures. Not only are his landscapes charged with emotion, which made him a trailblazer in the art of the late 1800s. The pictures also depict nature and the cycle of life. It is about the farmer who sows and harvests, about logging in the forest and about beach life along the fjord. In winter, he painted the peculiar sparse light, and the pastel tonal scale of the frost. At Ekely, he never got tired of depicting the seasonal changes in the elm forest. But what can an exhibition about Munch’s landscapes actually tell us that is new? High-pitched reverence It is with this slightly sullen and critical attitude that I enter the museum. But when I enter the exhibition, all objections are blown away, to help me, how strong it is to see so many of his various landscape paintings together. I walk around with a high-pitched reverence. For Munch, the landscape is never a decorative backdrop, it is always a living mirror for human emotions. Here, of course, “Scream” is the school example itself. A graphic version of this world-famous motif is included in the exhibition (those who want to experience it as an oil painting will find it in the collective exhibition “Infinite” one floor up in the museum). Another painting in which emotions shape nature is “Løsrivelse”. Here the pain of heartbreak is depicted as a bleeding bush. DISCHARGE: Munch let his emotions shape the landscape. In many images, nature becomes a mirror for human feelings. In the painting, we see how a light-clad young woman walks away from a dark-clad man who has his hands on his own chest, and it looks as if he is holding his own bleeding heart in his hand, and the blood is trickling out between his fingers. The bright red bush in front of the man is obviously a symbol of the pain; it stands there like an open, bleeding wound. The contrast between the man’s pain and the woman’s carelessness is strong. She walks with light steps towards the beach and becomes part of the meandering shoreline. Photo: The Munch Museum In “Starry Night” from 1924 loneliness is depicted. Here we get a powerful and almost magical depiction of the blue night atmosphere in winter. The dim, dense darkness colors the trees and the steep staircase at the front of the picture black. The snow-covered landscape is painted in a wealth of hues from deep blue and turquoise to shimmering white and pink. The sky is almost green, with large, white stars. The painting was painted in the old apple orchard at Ekely, and one gets the experience of standing there on the dark veranda and looking out over the fjord towards the lights from the city in the east. A lonely shadow looms on the snow. STARRY NIGHT: One of Munch’s strongest landscape paintings. A large dark shadow falls on the snow in front of the stairs, as if a person is hidden behind the banister. Perhaps it is the shadow of this solitary figure that charges the painting with its peculiar melancholy. Photo: The Munch Museum A completely different atmosphere is found in the picture “Bathering Man” from 1918. It was painted in the German city of Warnemünde on the Baltic coast. Here, Munch painted strong, muscular men bathing in the sunshine. We see the beautiful play of colors of rocks and seaweed through the clear bodies of water. Triumph in the world press The “Earth Vibrations” exhibition has triumphed from the USA via Germany and home to the Munch Museum and Oslo. In the world press, the exhibition has been praised in every key. One of last year’s best exhibitions, wrote The New York Times, for example. THE STORM: Munch is a master at charging his subjects with excitement. The dim light in the sky at night, against the glowing lamplight indoors. Photo: The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence But for those of us here at home who have always known that Munch is more than “Scream” and “Madonna”, what does this exhibition really have to offer? Although the thematic framework is not innovative, and the exhibition may not have taught me anything new about Munch, I feel inspired and enriched on my way out of the museum. In light of our own time’s climate and nature crisis, it is exciting to see Munch’s almost cosmic approach to nature, and his depiction of man as part of nature’s eternal cycle. This is an exhibition I’m glad I took part in! news reviewer Photo: Munchmuseet / Ove Kvavik Title: “Edvard Munch: Earthquakes” Curator: Trine Otte Bak Nielsen Location: Munchmuseet, Oslo Period: 27.4.2024 – 25.8.2024 Made in collaboration with: Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts and Museum Barberini in Potsdam Recommended time spent: 40 to 90 minutes Published 25.06.2024, at 09.39
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“Earth vibrations” at the Munch Museum, Oslo – Reviews and recommendations
