MUNCH Triennale: The Machine is Us
October 1–December 11, 2022
Camille Henrot: Mouth to Mouth
September 16, 2022–February 22, 2023
SOLO OSLO: Apichaya Wanthiang
October 1–December 31, 2022
in/visible
Performance by Brendan Fernandes
November 10–12, 2022
The autumn of 2022 sees the launch of MUNCH’s ambitious new contemporary art programme with the inaugural MUNCH Triennale, the first Edvard Munch Art Award exhibition, a solo show by an Oslo-based artist, and a performance celebrating queer identity and solidarity.
Taking its title from a passage in Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto (1985), The Machine is Us includes new and recent works by artists who, in different ways, reflect on how new technology affects us, both as individuals and as communities. A majority of the art projects in the exhibition are commissions, including site-specific works that take the surroundings of MUNCH and its collection as a point of departure. *
The exhibition Mouth to Mouth features paintings, drawings and bronze sculptures from Camille Henrot’s series System of Attachment (2018–22) and prints on canvas from her new body of work Dos and Don’ts (2022). Henrot was the recipient of the Edvard Munch Art Award in 2015, and this solo exhibition is part of the award. Mouth to Mouth includes the monumental bronze sculpture Family of Men, created especially for the gallery at MUNCH.
Apichaya Wanthiang is the second artist to be awarded the SOLO OSLO commission, where an emerging Oslo-based artist is invited to create a new work for the distinctive gallery on level 10 of MUNCH. Building on her research into the effects of trauma, Wanthiang invites visitors to move through a total installation entitled Some Body Else, which she likens to the feeling of entering a body. The space has two atmospheres, generated by coloured sheets of agar and programmed light, triggering different degrees of stress and calm.
Brendan Fernandes’s new performance in/visible is a celebration of queer identity, community, and solidarity conceived for the Amphitheatre at MUNCH. Its glass walls enable an exploration of in/visibility as a common experience of marginalised groups. The circular space at the centre of the museum will be activated by dancers, costumes, lighting, and newly composed music.
*The artists participating in the first MUNCH Triennale are Cory Arcangel, Salome Asega, Meriem Bennani, Zach Blas, Gillian Brett, Victoria Durnak, Harun Farocki, Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze, Silje Linge Haaland, Maryam Jafri, Toril Johannessen, Agnieszka Kurant, Cameron MacLeod, Magnhild Øen Nordahl, Frida Orupabo, Michael Rahbek Rasmussen, Bella Rune, Jacolby Satterwhite, Helle Siljeholm, Hito Steyerl, Pilvi Takala, Miloš Trakilovic, Ayatgali Tuluebek, Lesia Vasylchenko and Lu Yang.
The exhibition has been created by a curatorial team MUNCH led by Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Tominga O’Donnell, together with Stefano Collicelli Cagol. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Charles Esche and Mi You have been advisors to the MUNCH Triennale.
