Works from the Astrup Fearnley... | Exhibitions

Works from the Astrup Fearnley Collection

Astrup Fearnley Museet

Oslo | Norway

Apr 21, 2015 - Aug 16, 2015

The Astrup Fearnley Collection is one of Norway鈥檚 most important and most extensive private collection of contemporary art. The collection has always concentrated on individual artworks and artists rather than movements or historical periods, and is particularly focusing on contemporary art that pushes the boundaries of the artistic canon. It consists of many significant artists who has been central in the development of the international art scene for the past 50 years 鈥� either because they have created an individual visual language, works of great originality and quality, or because they have reinvented important aspects of cultural production.

From the beginning of the 1960s and until today, the Astrup Fearnley Collection has had a continuing development and growth. The collection reflects the diversity that has dominated art for the past decades. Many of the works have a strong narrative character, where the artists are questioning our reality through visual commentaries in an available and spectacular way 鈥� often with serious socially critical undertones. Up to the 1990s, the selection of artists primarily came from Europe and USA, like Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Richard Prince and Damien Hirst. During the last decade however, the collection has concentrated on younger American contemporary artists like Paul Chan, Nate Lowman, Dan Colen, Frank Benson and Trisha Donnelly. Today, the most innovative artists also come from China, India and Brazil as from New York or London. The collection has for the past years focused on important European, Brazilian, Japanese, Chinese and Indian contemporary artists.