Thank you for this year! The house is closed from December 23 through January 1
The exhibition Close by Eli Mai Huang Nesse is open until Sunday, December 22nd, as is the restaurant. The cinema also has its last screening that day. After that, the house will be closed until over the New Year, and will reopen on Thursday, January 2nd.
Published
Director's Christmas greetings
2024 was a rich year for art at Kunstnernes Hus, with a continuous flow of themes related to collectivity, openness, voice, and resonance. We started the year with a program connected to Art as Punishment, the exhibition featuring works by inmates from Agder High-Security Prison, and the Swiss-German duo Boudry/Lorenz, who created a choreography about the boundaries between visibility and invisibility. Several exhibitions were listening experiences: Maritea Dæhlin created a collective sleep- and listening session in the skylight hall, and in the summer exhibitions, with total installations by Pearla Pigao and Maia Urstad, both sound and listening were central. We continued our focus on the borderland between art and film with exhibitions by Daisuke Kosugi and James Richards in the lower hall, and through Silver Series screenings in the cinema with Shirin Neshat, The Otolith Group and Kamal Aljafari. The year was rounded off with the beginning of a new series highlighting young artistic practices, Undergrowth, with Eli Mai Huang Nesses' meditation on the luck and misfortune of life. In the skylight rooms, the year concluded with an exhibition intervention by Dag Erik Elgin, evoking the visit of Pablo Picasso’s iconic Guernica to Kunstnernes Hus in 1938, while also offering a timely reflection on war and its representation.
2024 was also the year we received 40 million from the Sparebankstiftelsen DNB to begin the rehabilitation of our iconic building. In connection with this, we launched the #HusetVårt campaign, which focuses on the house’s collective histories and contributes to realizing the funding for the project. All contributions will be collected in this charming counter designed by João Doria de Souza from Plantas Studio. On November 1st, we hosted a large celebration in the skylight halls, organized as a volunteer effort, which gathered people of all ages for a collective celebration of the house. Directors and leaders from other museums stood side by side with artists during the first shift at the bar.
We are now diligently working with the architects at Atelier Oslo and Fokus Rådgivning to develop plans for the rehabilitation, which focuses on preservation and sustainability, and aims to enhance the experience for all who use and visit the house. The plans will form the basis for upcoming applications to the state, municipality, and other supporters in 2025, so the house can remain a vital meeting place for future generations.
The final event of 2024 was a procession that brought the works gathered and crafted by hand by Jannik Abel to Kunstnernes Hus. It was a beautiful, quiet procession through the city. Many stopped and asked what they were seeing, obviously something remarkable. Jannik is now working in the halls installing the works, which you will be able to see when this first exhibition of 2025 – Back to the Land – opens on January 10th. With warm wishes from Kunstnernes Hus for now.
Kunstnernes Hus' Director Sarah Lookofsky
See our exhibition program for 2025
Stream home cinema movies during the Christmas holidays