Outside the center of Oslo is the area of Ekely. A hilly terrain with traditional Norwegian wooden houses side by side with brick houses and modern mid-century buildings. Here, artist communities have survived for generations and around the landscape there are numerous workshops and studio spaces. But an old classical building in particular catches the eye.
Back in 2016 the artists Johannes Holt Iversen and Christian Tony Norum met and worked in Edvard Munchs Studio. A brief visit during Norums residency at Ekely, that culminated in the collaboration on a collaborative oil painting. Seven years later in 2023 Christian Tony Norum invited Johannes Holt Iversen back again to join forces now forming a group exhibition developing a salon space with 38 participating artists.
In this historically loaded building and with the driving force of celebrating painting and sculpture; letting great masters of the past such as Asger Jorn, Sigmar Polke and Edvard Munch participate on equal terms with original works among the living artists (as if they were an awakened force of artistic nature in these tokens), the exhibition was taking past, present and future up for questioning. Even the format of the salon exhibition was taken back into play.
