Who owns tomorrow?
Collaboration with Kunstsilo
The exhibition is an expanded version of the traveling exhibition from Kunstsilo titled ‘Who Owns Tomorrow? Political Art from the Tangen Collection.’
When the exhibition is showcased in Notodden, new works have been added, both from the Tangen Collection and from the Telemark Kunstmuseum’s collection. The exhibition prominently features politically motivated art from the 1930s and 1940s, with Reidar Aulie and Arne Ekeland at the center. Iconic works such as Kjartan Slettemark’s ‘Nixon Visions’ and Per Kleiva’s ‘Blad frå Imperialismens dagbok I-III,’ among the most well-known examples of politically charged art in Norwegian art history, play a significant role in the exhibition.
‘Who Owns Tomorrow?’ presents artists who, through their art, raised questions and critiqued their own contemporary society. This was achieved not only through explicit political statements in their artwork but also by shedding light on aspects and themes they believed the public should care about, recognize, and value.
The exhibition’s title is taken from a work by Willibald Storn. He was among the initiators of the artist group GRAS, an Oslo-based collective that operated from 1969/70 to 1974 and had a significant impact on the contemporary art scene. They contributed to better compensation and scholarship systems for artists and to a democratization of the art field.
Through GRAS, the artists rallied against war and exploitation in the third world, against the rise of dictatorships, and against the power of capitalism. They criticized consumer society and the modern world’s destruction of nature and the environment. The group’s program also included bringing art into society, including by printing art and posters in large editions and at a low price.
The exhibition also showcases more poetic and less agitational works by other artists from the same generation and artists who were active from the post-war period to our own time.
The traveling exhibition ‘Who Owns Tomorrow? Political Art from the Tangen Collection’ is curated by Hanne Cecilie Gulstad at Kunstsilo. The expansion at Telemark Kunstmuseum is curated by Kathrine Lund in consultation with Gulstad.
ANDERS KJÆR / ANNA-EVA BERGMAN / ARNE EKELAND/ BJØRN MELBYE GULLIKSEN / CHRIX DAHL / DEA TRIER MØRCH / DORO ORDING/ EGIL STOREIDE/EIGIL MADSEN/EGIL RØD /ELISABETH HAARR/ EVA LANGE / GUTTORM GUTTORMSGAARD / HANNE BORCHGREVINK / JOHN SAVIO / KARI ROLFSEN/KJARTAN SLETTEMARK / LUDVIG EIKAAS/ MORTEN KROHG / PAUL RENÉ GAUGUIN/ PER KLEIVA / REIDAR AULIE/ ROGER GJERSTAD/ROLF NERLI/SONJA KROHN/SVEINUNG IVERSEN/TERJE BERGSTAD/VICTOR LIND / WILLIBALD STORN/ØIVIND BRUNE
Exhibition Opening
The exhibition will open on Saturday, August 26th at 1:00 PM.
The opening of the exhibition will feature speeches by Kathrine Lund, curator at Telemark Art Museum, and Hanne Cecilie Gulstad, curator at Sørlandet Art Museum / Kunstsilo.
The opening speech will be delivered by Harald Olsen, Regional Vice Chair of LO Vestfold and Telemark.
Music will be performed by Trond Ytterbø, who was awarded LO’s cultural prize in 2012. In their justification, the jury stated: “Trond Ytterbø is a person of solidarity and has a big heart for groups that, for some reason, are left out in society.”
