The Pillars

Narrator
The Pillars differ in many ways from the rest of the collection presentation. The room has a different design, use of materials, acoustics, and lighting than the neighboring rooms. 

In this room we show works from The Fredriksen Family Art Collection, and this is the second exhibition in a series that will span a decade. 

The exhibition architecture was carried out by the Italian firm 2050+ and gives the National Museum more options for how we can display art in the room. 

Geir Haraldseth 
For this exhibition, we show eleven works that challenge our senses, made in various materials from cheap steel wire to gold. 

Narrator
This is Geir Haraldseth, curator at the National Museum

Geir Haraldseth 
You are led into the room by the neon work of the American artist Bruce Nauman. Then you come to two rooms, shaped like semicircles, where we show works that have been created in different ways at different times. 

The earliest historical reference is in the work of Marguerite Humeau, a version of the Venus of Frasassi, a fertility goddess from over 20,000 years ago. The goddess has here been spliced with the brain of a hare. 

It may sound strange, but an archaeologist has a theory that the shape of the various Venus figures that we find around the world is based on different animal brains. 
And, if you ate such an animal brain, you could have a psychedelic trip! 

I hope you don't trip in the room! But, in any case, it is designed to be a sensual experience. 

Narrator
Two works from the previous exhibition in this room, are also included in this new display… 

Geir Haraldseth 
Carmen Herrera's large blue sculpture Pavanne, which existed only as a drawing and idea for many decades before it was produced, remains in this room. 
So too, does a painting by Lynette Yiadom-Boyade, which is a reference to the painting Olympia from 1863 by Edouard Manet.