OSLO.- This summer, visitors are being treated to a surprising and somewhat unusual exhibition on the first floor of the National Gallery, as paintings by the artist Dag Erik Elgin are being showcased in a dialogue with some of the National Museum’s most famous works of art. The title Museum Work refers both to the work that takes place at a museum and to the works of art that the museum possesses. The title alludes moreover to how Elgin’s paintings address the way art is presented and treated in museums. The exhibition opened 25 May. Museum Work will run until 9 September.

Elgin has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with the National Gallery’s art. At the museum, he has studied, learned, been inspired, and asked questions about what has been on display – and what he feels has been missing. Modern masters such as Courbet, Manet, and Picasso have figured heavily, in addition to paintings by Nordic and Norwegian artists such as Wilhelm Hammershøi and Charlotte Wankel.

Comments on the National Museum’s collection
The paintings in Elgin’s series La Collection Moderne, Originals, and Balance of Painters address absence and presence in the National Museum’s collection. Elgin’s paintings call attention to exemplary works, explore notions of quality, and put the spotlight on acquisition policy. Art museums are thereby portrayed as venues of study and learning, but also as actively creative narrators of stories. The National Gallery has been instrumental in presenting art in Norway, and according to the exhibition curator Øystein Ustvedt, “Museum Work can be understood as part celebration, part critique of the art museum as an institution in general – and the National Gallery in particular.”

Dag Erik Elgin (b. 1962) graduated from the National Academy of Art (1986–88) and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1988–90) and has enjoyed a remarkable artistic career since the 1990s. In 2014 he received the Carnegie Art Award first prize, and during 2010–16 he worked as a professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO). Elgin lives in Oslo.