Rotating Views #1
17 Jan - 22 Mar 2009
ROTATING VIEWS #1
17 January - 22 March 2009
The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art houses an exceptional collection of international contemporary art. It is not a historical collection tracing a chronological development and it does not explore specific artistic movements or aspire to present an encyclopaedic overview of international art today. Rather, it can best be described as a carefully selected cluster of major works by leading international contemporary artists.
The Astrup Fearnley Collection is vast and expanding. For the next two years, its works will go on a temporary rotating display within the museum. The concept of rotation enables us to work with the collection as a whole but not at the same time. It presents a way to create constellations of works ‘on the move’, and facilitates surprising and unique assemblages of art across a large, diverse conceptual and thematic spectrum.
Rotating the works introduces the notion of a broken linearity, as works from several decades and different political and cultural contexts are shown together. It also allows for an atypical geographical order as ‘Western’ artists from Scandinavia, France, Germany, Britain and the United States share the space with ‘Eastern’ artists from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and India. Rotation, in this way, highlights the ‘alphabetical’, artist-based nature of the Astrup Fearnley Collection, emphasising individual artists rather than an abstract chronological or historical framework.
Rotation allows for a multitude of possibilities and as such mirrors the complex, open nature of pictorial language. Inviting endless ways of bringing together different kinds of art, it generates new readings and experiences of particular objects and creates ‘inter-work’ relationships, which may even reveal hidden and mysterious coalitions and affiliations.
Over the next two years, visitors are offered a chance to see works from the collection in a new light. This long-term engagement presents a potpourri of artists, stylistic genres and complex social, political and aesthetic themes. And in the process, it documents pioneering new dimensions in contemporary art.
17 January - 22 March 2009
The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art houses an exceptional collection of international contemporary art. It is not a historical collection tracing a chronological development and it does not explore specific artistic movements or aspire to present an encyclopaedic overview of international art today. Rather, it can best be described as a carefully selected cluster of major works by leading international contemporary artists.
The Astrup Fearnley Collection is vast and expanding. For the next two years, its works will go on a temporary rotating display within the museum. The concept of rotation enables us to work with the collection as a whole but not at the same time. It presents a way to create constellations of works ‘on the move’, and facilitates surprising and unique assemblages of art across a large, diverse conceptual and thematic spectrum.
Rotating the works introduces the notion of a broken linearity, as works from several decades and different political and cultural contexts are shown together. It also allows for an atypical geographical order as ‘Western’ artists from Scandinavia, France, Germany, Britain and the United States share the space with ‘Eastern’ artists from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and India. Rotation, in this way, highlights the ‘alphabetical’, artist-based nature of the Astrup Fearnley Collection, emphasising individual artists rather than an abstract chronological or historical framework.
Rotation allows for a multitude of possibilities and as such mirrors the complex, open nature of pictorial language. Inviting endless ways of bringing together different kinds of art, it generates new readings and experiences of particular objects and creates ‘inter-work’ relationships, which may even reveal hidden and mysterious coalitions and affiliations.
Over the next two years, visitors are offered a chance to see works from the collection in a new light. This long-term engagement presents a potpourri of artists, stylistic genres and complex social, political and aesthetic themes. And in the process, it documents pioneering new dimensions in contemporary art.