Viking Magazine - October 2021 - 38

Ambassador's Insights
Oslo's New MUNCH Museum, Sizing up a Legend
BY ANNIKEN KRUTNES
that's because
Munch himself
suffered
greatly and his
suffering would
inform and
shape his work
throughout his
life. He lost
his mother to
tuberculosis
at age 5 and
his beloved
sister Sophie
R
enowned painter and printmaker
Edvard Munch is a Norwegian
national treasure.
Although he had little formal training,
he left behind a body of work that
rivals any great master's, with his work
on display in museums the world over.
However, he wanted to be known not
as an old master but a contemporary
artist, using innovative techniques,
painting relatable scenes of anxiety and
uncertainty, and tackling controversial
topics-including a frank sexuality-that
had him on art's cutting edge.
Despite his prolific output, Munch's
outsize public image is based primarily
on one iconic image, " The Scream. "
Not a realistic capture of a specific time
and place, it's an emotional reaction to
a very personal experience, captured on
cardboard. (Yes, cardboard. The two
existing oil paintings and two pastels
of " The Scream " were all done on
cardboard, a conservator's nightmare.)
If you can, try to think back to the first
time you saw this image, before it became
a meme, a t-shirt and an emoji.
If this work of art evokes suffering,
38 VIKING OCTOBER 2021
sonsofnorway.com
nine years later. His father and brother
died when he was young, too, and
another sister was institutionalized
with mental illness.
He was obsessed with Sophie's death
and would go on to paint it many times,
most memorably in " The Sick Child. "
Near the end of her life, she asked for
help getting from bed into a chair. Munch
would keep that chair for the rest of
his life.
Munch was among the first to paint his
emotions focusing on how an object or
scene made him feel rather than how it
might look to a neutral observer.
Perhaps it will take a structure as
massive and impressive as Munch's own
legend to help bring him down to a human
scale. The new MUNCH museum is
scheduled to open in the Bjørvika district
of Oslo on October 22, 2021. It will be
part of a thriving area on the waterfront,
with the new main library just having
opened recently, and the spectacular
Opera House.
Four years before he died, Munch
bequeathed more than 26,000 paintings,
sculptures, prints and other artworks
to the city of Oslo. Now, 200 of those
will be on permanent display in the new
museum, and others will rotate, along
with the works of other Modernist and
contemporary artists.
With 13 floors, 11 galleries-including
a specially designed double-height
gallery to display some of Munch's larger
works-48,000 sq. ft. of gallery space,
280,000 sq. ft. of total space, and an
extensive searchable online collection,
the museum will be built on a scale
appropriate for Munch's legacy. Within
that space, which will boast impressive
views of downtown Oslo and the harbor,
patrons will have the chance to get to
know the very human artist that stands
behind those t-shirts and memes today.
The museum will do the important
work of conserving Munch's masterpieces,
including two of the four existing original
" Scream " paintings. And it will help
visitors come face to face not just with
Edvard Munch: The Legend, but Edvard
Munch, the man.
About the Author
Anniken Krutnes is
Norway's ambassador
to the United States.
An expert in security
policy, the law of the
sea and Arctic issues,
she has previously
served as Deputy Director General of
the Department of Security Policy, as
Norway's Ambassador for Arctic and
Antarctic Affairs, and as ambassador
to the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
facebook.com/
NorwegianEmbassyinWashington/
@NorwayAmbUSA
PHOTO: ADRIÀ GOULA
AMBASSADOR PHOTO BY PONTUS HÖÖK
http://www.facebook.com/norwegianembassyinwashington http://www.facebook.com/norwegianembassyinwashington http://www.sonsofnorway.com
Viking Magazine - October 2021

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