Week 41: The marble bathroom (National Museum)
The leaves are falling and the sky is getting darker. It’s the perfect time to embrace the colder months by enjoying some immersion in the arts. Here’s what the National Museum is showing!
Asta Nørregaard: Truth and Beauty
28th of May to 18th of October
Whether you’re an aficionado of the arts or a casual visitor like myself, the breadth of style and subject of Asta Nørregaard (1853—1933)—one of Norway’s pioneering female painters—lingers in your memory well after your visit to the National Museum. While the focus is on her portraits, pastels and fashion, the exhibition also reveals her gift for religious scenes, atmospheric landscapes and detailed interiors. She can truly do it all! Her subjects range from business leaders and accomplished scientists to early activists in the women's rights movement. The subjects are often as captivating as the skill she portrays. Furthermore, the attention to the fashion of the day oozes out of her painting (it’s giving Lana Del Rey coquette aesthetic). She captures the essence of life with profound intimacy in these 48 works, finding beauty anywhere and in anyone.
Mastering the copy
16th of January to 11th of October
Two exhibitions for the price of one? You’ve gotta be kidding me! Mastering the copy explores the value of copying within 19th century art, ultimately asking audiences “can you create something new by copying” (a copied quote from the website). The exhibition brings together 59 works—paintings, marble sculptures, pastels, drawings, and sketchbooks that have been sourced from the museum's own holdings, as well as the Munch Museum and Oslo Museum, and private collections. The exhibition presents copying as a tool for learning, experimentation, and innovation. Sculptures turn into drawings, drawings into painting, paintings into engravings. The exhibition challenges the notion of “authentic art” proving that these imitations can become remarkable works of art in their own right.
As we say in Australia, “get amongst it”.