The exhibition that we have the pleasure of showing to a Norwegian audience includes works by 32 different artists from the 5 Nordic countries. They are gathered under the collective term abstract, but it should be relatively easy to put other and more apt labels on many of the participants. At the same time that everyone has, to a certain extent, a common artistic idea as the real and decisive one, they are also individualists, diverse, playing and fighting artists, all together. And if we are faced with true art, the labels can calmly break and go. No current artist allows himself to be buried alive.

The exhibition will show many facets of the Nordic region's current abstract art, but it does not pretend to provide more than certain links in a chain. Space considerations have made it necessary to limit participation, and unfortunately we also have to miss a couple of artists who were invited for various reasons. Still, we believe that both versatility and quality will be well represented with the artists chosen.

The participants themselves have prepared their selection within the chronology that each individual was made available.

It has been our aim to set up an exhibition that will show how artistic imagination has conquered new ground in the Nordic countries in the years after the war. These are the innovative ideas that saw the light of day in France and Germany approx. 50 years ago, which has been the background for modern art in Europe in our century. Now, in the Nordics too, they have led to an art that finds rich expression independently of the illusion of nature. The exhibition is aiming to be highly topical, and we hope that in this way we have succeeded in presenting the public with an enticing, varied and exciting selection.