Kategori: Art

Lap-See Lam – the fourth recipient of the Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award – is presented in a major solo exhibition. Through the use of various media, the Swedish artist explores history, myths, and the present through atmospheric storytelling. The exhibition will include spatial works as well as new pieces.

Lap-See Lam works across a wide range of media, including video, installation, sculpture, and performance. She explores questions of identity, migration, and belonging through narratives that emerge from the Chinese diaspora in Europe.

Lam’s multilayered practice weaves together history, myth, and technology. She creates atmospheric worlds where cultural heritage and the contemporary meet, and where traditional forms of storytelling—such as Cantonese opera and shadow play—intersect with digital media.

The exhibition at Henie Onstad will be Lam’s largest presentation in Norway to date, featuring two large shadow-play works installed together for the first time as a unified spatial installation, in addition to new works created especially for the exhibition.

The exhibition is curated by Isabella Maidment and Xiaoyu Weng.

The exhibition presents the breadth of a rich artistic practice and highlights painting, drawing, sculpture, illustration, and scenography. At the same time, it revisits the oeuvre with a fresh perspective, emphasizing the social and historical contexts that shaped Fjell’s work.

Kai Fjell was at the height of his career as an artist in the 1930s and 1940s, a time when art often became political and reflected the unrest of society. After his debut at the Oslo Art Association in 1932, he painted somber works with strong social engagement, using motifs that commented on challenges within society. During the war he continued to work despite shortages and restrictions, creating many of his most compelling works in the decades surrounding the Second World War. Inspired by international modernists as well as Norwegian folk art, Kai Fjell worked across far more media and fields than has previously been emphasized.

The exhibition at Henie Onstad ranges from his well-known depictions of women and “mother and child” motifs to Fjell’s innovative scenography for the National Theatre and art projects in public spaces such as Bakkehaugen Church, Fornebu Airport, and the High-Rise building in the Government Quarter. The exhibition is curated by Kathrine Lund and Martine Hoff Jensen.

In 2026, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter will present the major solo exhibition Ann Lislegaard: ANIMOID. Lislegaard is regarded as a pioneer in feminist futurism and in the use of digital technology in art.

This exhibition is dedicated to the German avant-garde artist Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) and his colleagues and successors.

Kurt Schwitters was one of the most distinctive and versatile artists in the first half of the 1900th century. The artistic tactics and strategies he developed have had a significant influence on later generations. The exhibition showcases Schwitters in conjunction with his contemporaries and artists he later inspired in the avant-garde tradition.

The French term "avant-garde" means vanguard. The term is used for experimental artists or movements that oppose or change tradition, and for artists working across art forms with innovative strategies such as manifestos, artist books, and "mail-art." Historically, the avant-garde denotes important movements such as Dada, Futurism, and Surrealism, which emerged at the end of the 1800th century and culminated in the 1920s and 1930s, followed by the radical innovation in art, literature, and fashion in the late 1950s and 1960s, known as the neo-avant-garde. For the avant-garde, social and political radicalism is closely linked to artistic innovation. More than being stylistic movements or "schools," the avant-garde is about different attitudes toward life.

Since 2009, Sparebankstiftelsen DnB has developed a collection of Schwitters and his artistic colleagues in close collaboration with Henie Onstad. The collection is still evolving. Since the museum's creation in 1968, Henie Onstad has been a place for the avant-garde and for interdisciplinary artistic projects. The institution holds a unique position in this field in Norway. The exhibition presents Sparebankstiftelsen DnB's collection alongside material from Henie Onstad's own collections and archives.

The exhibition is permanently displayed in Henie Onstad's Gallery Merz, which is a brand new exhibition hall at the museum. The hall covers 430 square meters and is created as an integrated part of the original building from 1968. The space which previously was used as storage, have been transformed into public areas for art and span two floors. The exhibition space is designed by Snøhetta, and the exhibition design is developed by the artist Luca Frei in collaboration with Henie Onstad.