MUNCH Museum in Oslo - the art, the Lambda og Moren (the Mother)
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- 4 days ago
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MUNCH Museum in Bjørvika has the largest collection of Edvard Munch's surviving works. The museum exhibits some of the most important of these, but some of the floors also feature international exhibitions and modern art. In addition, there is an exhibition of Munch's belongings and a workshop where you can make your own graphic print. The museum is a tribute to one of Norway's greatest artists. This post presents the building and some of the art.
Edvard Munch's artwork is considered Norway's most important contribution to world art. The museum is one of the world's largest museums dedicated to a single artist. It is 13 stories high and has over 42,000 museum objects. Some of the floors and halls are permanent exhibitions of Edvard Munch's most important works. Others are set aside for temporary exhibitions and changing art by other artists. The building consists of a tower with a characteristic bend shaped like the letter Lambda and a wider base of three stories.
Munch had already been in talks with the Oslo municipality in 1927 about a museum for his artworks. He wanted to collect his works in a building on the eastern edge of Oslo and in 1940 donated all his works to the Oslo municipality. However, the process was very slow. The municipality only decided in 1946, two years after Munch's death, that a museum should be built. Then five years of discussions about where the museum should be located took place, and it was not until 100 years after Munch's birth that the Munch Museum on Tøyen was completed in 1963.
Munch donated 26,724 works of art to the Oslo Municipality in 1940. These included paintings, graphic prints, drawings, sketches, and sculptures. He also donated 9,830 personal belongings and documentary material such as printing plates and photographs. He bequeathed his artist's home and studio at Ekely to his heirs, who sold it to the Oslo Municipality in 1946. However, the municipality let it fall into disrepair and later demolished it to build a parking lot. Fortunately, enthusiasts saved the studio.
However, the artworks left behind at Munch's death do not provide a complete picture of the artist's production since they do not include art he sold. Therefore, donations from collectors who have purchased art from Munch over the years have been important. In 1936, the financier and art collector Rolf Stenersen donated his large collection of Munch's art of 1,000 paintings to the Oslo municipality on the condition that the municipality find a suitable location for them within three years.
The municipality never fulfilled that obligation, but Stenersen's collection is now part of the MUNCH Museum. The municipality of Oslo also received gifts from the art collectors and artists Amandus Clarin Nielsen and Ludvig O. Ravensberg and Ravensberg's widow. Together, these donations have helped to document Munch's production and Norway's art history over a period of more than 100 years.
As the museum building on Tøyen grew older, a new museum building became necessary. The existing one was too small to display the artist's extensive production, and it could not maintain a good enough indoor climate to store the art safely. This led to new, protracted discussions about the need for a new museum building, its costs, its location and eventually the height of the building. In 2013, however, the Oslo City Council finally decided that the new Munch Museum would be moved to Bjørvika. It was first called Lambda after the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet, but was renamed MUNK when it opened in 2022.
MUNK received five times the exhibition space of the old Munch Museum. But when it was finished, it did not receive only praise. Critics thought it was ugly with the bright aluminum plates on the outside, and some reacted to the shape and height. When the discussions had begun to die down, a new discussion arose about a large statue that would be placed in a flower meadow on Inger Munch's pier, an artificial flower meadow set on piles in the sea outside the museum.
The artwork, called The Mother, was created by British artist Tracey Emin. It is a nine-meter-tall bronze statue of a woman with her back to the museum and holding something we cannot see. Critics said the statue was ugly, large, and domineering. Supporters said it was an interesting addition to the museum building and a nice landmark in the harbor.
The building's exterior architecture is also noticeable inside the building. On the first floor of the wide shell around the tower there is a spacious, bright, and airy lobby where you can buy tickets, buy Munch products in the shop or buy food/drinks in a cafeteria. In the upper part of the building above the bend, the walls are crooked. To get into the exhibitions you must go into the tower building next door. It consists of 13th floors with a restaurant on the 12th floor and a bistro on the 13th floor.
On the 3rd floor there is a library, workshops where you can be creative yourself and a temporary exhibition. From 15.02.2025 to 04.05.2025 you could see the exhibition WITH BOTH LEGS FIRST by Georg Baselitz. Baselitz was strongly inspired by Munch and developed his own technique where he painted the motifs upside down. He was particularly interested in Munch's self-portraits and the Scream motif.
On the 4th floor you will find the EDVARD MUNCH UENDELIG (INFINITE) collection. It is a permanent exhibition with many of Munch's most famous works such as Vampire, Madonna and The Scream. The Scream comes in three versions - a painting, a drawing, and a lithograph - but to preserve the images, only one of them is shown at a time.
There are no exhibitions on the fifth floor, but on the sixth floor you will find the MUNCH MONUMENTAL collection. Here are the large works that cover up to 50 square meters and for which a hall spanning two floors had to be created to accommodate them.
On the seventh floor you will find a museum in the museum EDVARD MUCH SKYGGER - an exhibition of Munch's belongings and playback of audio files and films and the exhibition INNTIL which shows the breadth of Munch's woodcuts.
On the 9th floor there are varying exhibitions. From 14.03.2025 - 15.06.2025 the collection METATEEM by Kerstin Brätsch Metateem was on display.
On the 10th floor there are varying exhibitions. From 05.03.2025 to 03.08.2025 Kiyoshi Yamamoto had the exhibition YOU ARE WHAT YOU IS.
On the 11th floor there are also varying exhibitions. From 24.05.2024 the exhibition MUNCH HORIZONS has been on display. It places Munch's art next to other artists to show how Munch has influenced art and how Munch can be understood considering other artists.
Even with five times the exhibition space, the MUNCH Museum can only display a small fraction of Munch's art. But you can see many of the most important works, and the combination of the permanent exhibitions with 200 permanent works by Munch and the temporary exhibitions with works by other artists means that you can visit the museum many times and see new art each time. In the temporary exhibitions, you will also see varying images of Munch.
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Excursion of the week: MUNCH Museum i Oslo
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