Vilhelm Christensen's solo exhibition I Was Moved at Gamle Munch (the former Munch Museum) finds its point of departure in the objects, inventory and spaces left behind in the large-scale move that was part of the process of constructing a new Museum for Edvard Munch in the very centre of Oslo. The installation examines the potential afterlives and value of objects having acted in care for the heritage of Munch; while simultaneously working to render visible the various support structures in play to uphold the many facets of the museum. From aspects of security to conservation, the exhibition examines the conflicting interests within the institution itself. Now standing as an institution without institution, the old Munch Museum on Tøyen remains as an empty shell, but also acts as a witness to the fact that a museum is never only a physical structure. As visitors are toured through the adjacent backrooms, they are allowed to witness a form for detective-work that seemingly undoes the very scenography or narrative structure it is simultaneously working to construct. The result of a material mapping, tracing the everyday lifeworld of the museum, within the institution's physical structure, but outside the organizational one.
The exhibition is accompanied by an essay written by Emil Sandström.
I Was Moved
29.March – 7.May 2023
Gamle Munch
Tøyengata 53
0578 Oslo