Bendik Riis (1911-88) is a central figure in Norwegian post-war art, and still highly relevant in relation to important trends in contemporary art. His art contains existential extremes and collective memories associated with the emergency period in the 1930s, the war and the German occupation, as well as the enhanced national feeling that characterized the Norwegian society than in the 1950s. Riis has captured this in his art and writing his own life into a common history. On view through 23 May, 2010
Riis’ art reflects not least the national fascination with how it has affected large parts of Norwegian art from JC Dahl and right up to the 1960s. Given today’s current debate on the national and multicultural gives his pictures us an interesting perspective on this strong cultural and political recognition.
Political templates
Riis is a political painter who has also created a series of works based on his own experience as a patient admitted to Gaustad forced hospitals from 1946 to 1952. These pictures leave a monument to the physical therapy that was common in contemporary psychiatric asylum, with various shock treatments, lobotomy and castration. His art is moving in the range between the moving great and painful traumatic.
Highest representation of Riis’ art is almost thirty years since we last see a larger exhibition of Bendik Riis’s work in Oslo, this was one of overlyssalene the Artist House in 1983. In 1998 appeared Gallery F15 in Moss, a retrospective exhibition. It was created by art historian Jon-Ove Steihaug, who is also the curator of this exhibition and has written a doctoral thesis on Riis’ art. The exhibition at the National Museum will be the biggest achievement of Riis’ art that is done. In addition to collecting his most important paintings and drawings, this exhibition for the first time also focus on his poetry and lyrics.
The National Museum in Oslo displays a series of exhibitions with a presentation of Norwegian and foreign art, architecture and design, both the museum buildings in Oslo, the rest of Norway through a land deck current program and abroad. Basic exhibitions with works from the museum’s own collections are displayed in the Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery and National Museum – Architecture.
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design was established on 1st July 2003. It consists of the former Norwegian Museum of Architecture, the former Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, the former Museum of Contemporary Art, the former National Gallery, and the former National Touring Exhibitions, Norway.
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design
Kristian Augusts gate 23, Oslo, Norway
Switchboard: (+47) 21 98 20 00
www.nasjonalmuseet.no
