While in Oslo, I made sure to visit this museum. I am a big fan of all kinds of art, and I knew this museum was going to be great. With floor upon floor of artwork, I was not disappointed, but when I walked into the first exhibit, I was slightly more than surprised.
As you walk up to the museum, you are immediately struck by its size. At 13 stories, it is a sight to behold and looks incredibly overwhelming. What I found out later is that several of these floors are not available to tour (for the public), meaning it is smaller than you would think- only seven floors of exhibitions. The top two floors are a restaurant and rooftop bar. So, it's small, but if you are worried about taking four hours in the museum, don't.
After getting my ticket, I headed up to the first exhibit on floor three. This exhibit depicted art from Vanessa Baird. I'll be brutally honest. I did not like this exhibit whatsoever. The artwork was much... different than the rest (look up her work and you'll understand). So, not my thing. I also thought it was a little strange to get people to see this as their first exhibit. After walking out of there wondering what I was getting myself into if that was the first exhibit, I continued up.
Thankfully, the next floor was much more tame. This is where Munch's art started being displayed, and it was awesome. He is an incredibly talented artist, and he had an enormous amount of artwork that was able to be displayed. The artwork here was broken down into several different categories, with great descriptions of what they represented, with enough left out so you could draw your own conclusions about the artwork. This floor is where the Scream paintings are displayed. I was able to time it so I could see both the most famous version of Scream, as well as a sketch (30min intervals of time to switch between). Along with the rest, there were a lot of great paintings to see here and analyze.
The fourth floor was Munch's bigger (physically) paintings. I had never seen any of those paintings, and they were very interesting, especially "The Human Mountain", flanked on either side by two other paintings, with the three combining to present the reasons why people are ambitious: lust for power and greed, compared to the desire to better the world and help those around them.
The following floor displayed Munch's woodcuts, and also a workshop where you can make a frottage copy of some designs. This exhibit was smaller than the others, but I still thought it was educational and interesting to see. On floor nine was the exhibit by Arif- a Norwegian R&B artist. I thought this exhibit was interesting, but also much different than the rest. It included a video created by Arif that explores several themes. Don't ask me which themes, because it was kind of confusing, but if that's your thing go for it. After the film, there is also a studio where you can sometimes catch Arif working. When I went I don't think Arif was working, just these two other guys.
Floor ten was interesting contemporary art, but also not really my thing. It was a story about these two humans who became bird gods, and then blocked off the offerings from the real gods (the 12 Olympians). It was pretty strange (to me), but it is art nonetheless.
The final floor of exhibits returns to Munch's artwork. Like the rest of his work, I saw a lot of new paintings that I had never seen before up to this point. Two or three of the paintings here were being reframed when I was there, so I was not able to see them. However, this was not an enormous problem, as the rest of the exhibit made up for it multiple times over. Again, a lot of quality work, and it was pretty big. So you were able to spend a decent amount of time here.
Overall, a great museum with a ton of art. Although some of it was a little strange, the amount of works from Munch a several other similar artists was great. It doesn't take an enormous amount of time to go through, but you get a great experience that is worth both your time and your money. read more