Norway art museum | Tales from the Hutt

Thursday, 23-May-2024

Okay I am really excited to share these photos.

I adore art, but I do have specific types of art that I find it easiest to appreciate. Specifically, representational landscapes, with a focus on interesting natural lighting, are the easiest way to my heart. As it turns out, Norwegian history is chock-full of painters who specialized in exactly that!

After two more modern exhibits, mainly focused on pop-culture and challenging the status quo… well, It was a very nice cleanse for my spirit to get back to the simple beauty of the natural world. I wandered the galleries right up until the literal minute that they closed; walking out shortly after the final announcement that the museum was, in fact, now closed so get the heck out. I missed a few of the smaller exhibits, to be fair, but I’m still so thankful that I was able to get to see what I did.

I guess I’ll just have to come back sometime, won’t I?

Thursday, 23-May-2024

And now for something completely different.

On what could possibly be the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Banksey, or maybe is closer than an Engineer like myself realizes, I brought myself to the Astrup Fearnley museum of modern art to continue the parade of culture into my brain.

When I arrived, I learned that the parade would be a bit shorter than I’d expected, though… as the museum was basically cut in half by a renovation project currently in process. The good news – admission was half off. The bad news – there was less than half of a museum left to see.

I’m nothing if not optimistic, though, so I took the half-full glass in front of me and headed inward to explore the museum available to me, consoling myself with the knowledge that I’d have some extra free time to visit other museums… and/or cafes… afterward.

What I found was… extreme. There were three pieces that I absolutely fell head over heels for (shown above), along with a fair number that I wasn’t particularly fond of. That’s modern art, though, right? A departure from the purely representational art of landscapes and light, moving into things that speak more directly to people’s ideas?

Maybe.

Or maybe I’ve been visiting too many art museums.

WE’LL NEVER KNOW!