Artdots Echo: MUNCH Museum - January 2026

Zifzafa is an Arabic word describing a wind that shakes and rattles everything in its path. Lawrence Abu Hamdan has created a work which demonstrates the effect that more than 30 planned wind turbines will have upon the inhabitants of the occupied Golan Heights. The wind turbines’ mechanical sounds merge with recordings of the community, nature, and jazz. Together, these elements form an acoustic portrait of the Golan Heights: both a warning of what stands to be lost and a record of the community’s resilience.

The artwork also addresses important critical questions to do with the green movement and those who suffer in the transition to so-called clean energy. This is especially relevant in connection with the current anti-wind turbine protests here in Norway/Sápmi.

Featuring more than 70 paintings, Restless is the most wide-ranging presentation of Karsten’s painting since 1922. As well some of his better-known works, the exhibition includes several paintings from private collections which have rarely been displayed in public. The exhibition includes intimate interiors and still life, portraits of friends, family and celebrities of the age, so-called ‘paraphrases’ of old masters such as Rembrandt and Watteau, naked bodies and idyllic landscapes, as well as the private loans.

Embracing change and exploring your own identity has become a natural part of being human today. That’s why Karsten’s restless stylistic changes and his entire artistic output might seem more recognisable to us than in the artist’s own lifetime.

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) was one of Modernism's most significant artists. His tenacious experimentation within painting, graphic art, drawing, sculpture, photo and film has given him a unique position in Norwegian as well as international art history. He was active throughout more than sixty years; from the time he made his debut in the 1880s, right up to his death in 1944. Munch was part of the Symbolist movement in the 1890s and a pioneer of Expressionist art from the beginning of the 1900s onward.

(…) As a child, he is sick and close to death more than once. Having to stay in bed for whole winters, he is unable to attend school and is taught at home instead. But his poor health also gives him the freedom to pursue his passion – drawing. 17 years old he writes in his diary: “It is my decision now to become a painter.”

This exhibition invites you to explore the world of Edvard Munch — his ideas, processes, and the profoundly human topics that occupied him and that still affect us today. Through a wide selection from the museum’s collection, you can experience the richness of Munch’s artistic career and his unrelenting drive to experiment and innovate. The exhibition provides the opportunity to engage with themes and motifs that Munch explored his whole life in the form of paintings, graphics, drawing, photography, and sculpture — the tales of anxiety, death, love, and loneliness, which we all have in common.

(…) Munch and several other artists were invited to compete for the commission and Munch worked tirelessly for years, producing several hundred preparatory works and sketches. In order to work on this massive scale, he built a series of outdoor studios at his home where he created several versions of each motif in different sizes. (…) We present The Sun as a new departure in Munch’s career, symbolizing the power and ingenuity of life, and as a work that encompasses a number of narratives linked to the natural sciences, religion and the birth of the universe.

Edvard Munch experimented throughout his life with different techniques and was in his thirties when he first discovered printmaking. As time went on, printmaking became a very important part of his artistic practice. Munch used various printmaking techniques before finally trying his hand at woodcuts, which became the technique that gave him perhaps the greatest freedom for exploration. The process of spontaneous and unpredictable interaction between the artist and his materials – between the organic medium of wood, the paper and the ink – gave rise to some of Munch’s finest works.

Horizons presents the wider artistic landscape which existed around Edvard Munch during his development as an artist. Munch's life coincided with a time of great change. A wide range of new styles appeared in European art. Many artists explored new ways of representing reality in order to reflect their experience of the modern world. Art moved in a more abstract direction, and artists became freer in their use of colour. They drew attention to their inner lives as well as to social and political conditions.

Horizons is a new permanent exhibition at MUNCH. Edvard Munch’s art is displayed together with other artists who were active in the period between the 1880s and the 1950s. The exhibition features work by European artists Emil Nolde, Oscar Kokoschka, Raoul Dufy, Karl Schmitt-Rottluff, Alexej von Jawlensky, Else Alfelt, Asger Jorn, Sigrid Hjertén and Gabriele Münter. Among the Norwegian artists included are Gustav Vigeland, Henrik Sørensen, Ludvig Karsten, Erik Harry Johannessen, Per Krohg, Rolf Nesch, Olav Strømme, Arne Ekeland, Jakob Weidemann, Kai Fjell and Teddy Røwde.