This exhibition presents the diversity and high quality of the Astrup Fearnley Collection, which has developed into one of Scandinavia’s finest collections of international contemporary art. In this exhibition we present new acquisitions by younger artists, mainly Americans, who have entered the international art scene since 2000. You can also experience works by Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Bruce Nauman and others who established their artistic practice in the 1980s and ‘90s.

The exhibition features artists like Lizzi Bougatsos, Corin Hewitt, Terence Koh and Klara Lidén, who express themselves through diverse media such as sculpture, drawing, video, painting and photography. These artists often take their point of departure in existing visual material, yet in addition to appropriating pictures from mass media and consumer society, they personally transform their materials and means. Through collages, assemblages and altered readymades, the artists create stories. The impulse behind a work may be something surreal and surprising, like the works of Matthew Ronay or mysterious and immaterial, as we see in Trisha Donnelly’s works. In addition, we find works of artists like Gardar Eide Einarsson and Karl Haendel, expressing strong political engagement. The artists work with impressions from contemporary culture such as cartoon series and graffiti, yet when doing so, also engage with art historical traditions such as Surrealism, Abstract Expressionis m, Neorealism, Pop Art or 1960s Performance Art.

The artworks do not represent any particular generation, but can be seen as narrative, object based and figurative.

Curators: Gunnar B. Kvaran, Hanne Beate Ueland, Grete Årbu.

Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art receives generous support from Stiftelsen Thomas Fearnley, Heddy and Nils Astrup, and from Astrup Fearnley AS.