Pictures for a New World begins in the early twentieth century, when some of the major modern movements such as Cubism and Futurism paved the way for what would become abstract and non-figurative art. This was a truly exciting period marked by major technological and social advances. A new age called for radical and ambitious art that resonated with the new conditions of modern life. It was in the great cities that things happened, and Nordic artists sought out international environments where entirely new ways of creating images were being explored.
The exhibition highlights artists who distinguished themselves within the experimental formal languages of their time—artists who found new means of expression through art and who remain relevant today. From a Nordic perspective, the exhibition traces a developmental line within modern art that points towards abstract and concrete modes of expression.
The point of departure is the artistic milieu in Copenhagen in the years around the First World War, where a young generation of artists contributed to an experimental and multifaceted Nordic art scene. Here lay the seeds of several of the important artistic movements that followed. After the end of the First World War, borders reopened and Paris once again became the metropolis of the avant-garde. Many Nordic artists were drawn to the vibrant city, and their encounters with a thriving international art world formed the basis for a modern Nordic art that extends into our own time.
The exhibition includes works by key artists such as Gösta Adrian-Nilsson (GAN), Vilhelm Lundstrøm, Ellen Fischer, Thorvald Hellesen, Franciska Clausen, Charlotte Wankel, Erik Olson, Aage Storstein, Olle Bonniér, Olle Bærtling og Randi Fisher among many, many others.
About Stories from The Tangen Collection
Pictures for a New World. Stories from The Tangen Collection is part of a larger collaborative project between Kunstsilo and art historian and external curator Steinar Gjessing. Over many years, Gjessing has contributed to the development of the Tangen Collection—which today comprises nearly 7,000 works of art—and his experience and perspectives are highly relevant to Kunstsilo’s ongoing work with the stewardship and future management of the collection.
The exhibition presents, for the first time, a substantial number of artworks recently acquired from the Canica Art Collection. The Canica Collection was built up in the years following the turn of the millennium by the well-known business leader Stein Erik Hagen. When Steinar Gjessing was appointed as art advisor, the collection underwent a significant shift and took on a new direction, with a stronger emphasis on acquiring experimental and avant-garde art from the Nordic countries.
This major expansion has deepened the Tangen Collection and added a number of key works by central Nordic artists of the twentieth century—further strengthening its position as a vital source of insight into the Nordic modernist tradition.
The three exhibitions that make up this project are conceived as parts of one overarching whole. The intention has been to highlight some of the most important focal points of the collection, thereby outlining key trajectories in recent Nordic art that might otherwise be less readily visible.