Starting off the exhibition year was An echo buried deep deep down but calling still by artist duo Basel Abbas og Ruanne Abou-Rahme. Through video installation, sculpture, and text, this powerful exhibition explored how communities not only endure the consequences of oppressive political systems, but also create potential within this context.  In 2023, we also celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Astrup Fearnley Museet. Before Tomorrow presented works from the Astrup Fearnley Collection in both of the museum’s buildings, activating and extending the exhibition through the public program Before Tomorrow Live, inviting artists and performers from Norway and abroad to present performances, talks, sound, and screenings.  

You’re all welcome to join us in 2024 for another great year of art! Opening January 26th, the retrospective exhibition Leonard Rickhard – Between construction and collapse provides a rare opportunity to experience the full width of Rickhard’s body of work. Since the mid-1970s, Rickhard has repeated several subjects over and over in his paintings, such as the bird cabinet, the night painter, the model table, the birch forest, deserted barracks, and workers’ sheds. Among the most recent works are new versions of the model plane constructor, a motif Rickhard has returned to for over forty years, as well as a monumental, site-specific painting, which will be the most ambitious he’s ever created. 

On June 14th, we open the solo exhibition of American artist Cauleen Smith. Since releasing her first feature film in 1998 after an early education in music, Smith has produced experimental films and video installations for audiences in the film and art worlds for over two decades. Her projects generate future-focused, novel arrangements of physical objects, projections, textile banners, live musical performances and, with them, new experiences of Black social life.  

From October 11th, we present a group exhibition, curated by Owen Martin, focusing on the confluence of ideas and images that pass along and through several of the world’s major rivers. Prior to modernity, rivers were foundational for cultural, social, and economic exchange, but with the rise of new transportation technologies, these arteries became secondary in many Western contexts. Yet as economic, ecological, and social axes are being realigned, rivers are once again potent sites for imagining our shared future with and through visual culture. 

In addition to our three main exhibitions, we look forward to presenting a program of talks, performances, and screenings throughout the year.  

Season’s greetings and warm wishes for the new year from all of us at Astrup Fearnley Museet! 

---