Tracey Emin to Help Birth New Munch Museum on October 22

Tracey Emin b. 1963, United Kingdom Follow +

An opening date has finally been given for the new Munch, a museum devoted to Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, most famous for his painting The Scream (1893).

The museum will open to the public on 22 October with a show entitled Tracey Emin / Edvard Munch: The Loneliness of the Soul.

British artist Tracey Emin has a particular fascination with Munch, who she described to The Guardian as ‘my favourite artist in the whole world.’

She created a nine-metre-tall, 15-tonne bronze sculpture entitled Mother that will be displayed outside the new museum.

‘Munch’s mother died when he was very young, so I want to give him a mother,’ she said.

The Loneliness of the Soul will include paintings, sculptures, and neon text works made by Emin over the past decade, as well as earlier pieces such as My Bed (1998), which she exhibited at the Tate when she was nominated for the Turner Prize.

Due to the Munch’s delayed opening, the exhibition was shown first at London’s Royal Academy in December last year.

The New Munch Museum

Designed by estudio Herreros, the 13-storey museum will stand 57 metres tall on the edge of the Oslofjord, the waterway that leads to the Norwegian capital.

Works from its collection of over 26,700 pieces by Munch, many donated on the artist’s death in 1944, will be displayed in 11 new exhibition halls.

They include paintings, prints, photographs, drawings, and watercolours by the artist, ranging from 1873 to 1944. The collection also includes printing plates, lithographic stones, thousands of letters, and about 10,000 of Munch’s personal belongings.

Among the highlights of the collection are an eight-metre mural entitled The Sun (1909) and several versions of The Scream, including a pastel study from 1893 and a painting from 1910.

Following the Emin show, which concludes on 2 January 2022, an exhibition exploring the relationship between Surrealism and Symbolist artists entitled The Savage Eye will take place from 23 March to 19 June 2022. The show will feature works by Paul Gauguin, Odilon Redon, August Strindberg, and Auguste Rodin.

A third exhibition, taking place from 12 February to 8 August 2022, will explore the unexpected interdynamics of Edvard Munch’s work and the Norwegian black metal band Satyricon. —[O]

Main image: The Munch museum. Photo: Guttorm Stilen Johansen.