Swaying in Oslo

On a mission…find this icecream says Sara. 

The sway of the ship was with me for the whole time I was in Oslo and is still a bit with me here in Niort France.  So this posting is named for that swaying.  It was quite nice, especially as I lay down to sleep.  Rocking gently. 

My hotel was close to the Oslo central station and in the heart of the galleries and museums I wanted to visit.  At breakfast I met Judy and Kay from Wisconsin (strangely they didn’t know my ship buddy Wisconsin Maggie, but what is clear is that Wisconsin folk are travelling).  While Judy went to meet a knitting / yarn group (yes, it is an international movement… the clickerty clack of knitting needles tapping out a secret seductive code drawing people from everywhere with patterns and this weave and that wow one).  Kay and I headed to the National Museum via the Nobel Peace Center.  I wanted to go there because my pending travel buddy Kathleen Burns has such an award! 

However, it was closed for renovation or something:

The three word values of this institution are on the arches:
VIDSYN - BROADMINDEDNESS
HAP - HOPE
ENGASJEMENT - COMMITMENT

It seems that art by women is represented in galleries and museums as a norm here.  I wonder whether they would like Coach Sparrow on their wall now that the Archibald and Salon des Refusés judges have liberated it from Sydney.  Baaaaaaastards, as Mum would declare.  In the meantime here is a tiny selection from the National Musée: 

Not everything in the museum is beautiful. This one of made me vomit in my hand.  Thought I’d share it with you…

But walking in to this room erased the horror:  there it was, over there! 

I spent hours at this Musée.  It was wonderful. I couldn’t believe the volume and it all left my eyes twirling , this emoji is apt: 😵‍💫

Still, there was another art gallery just further along so I pushed through, breathed in the clear crisp air and went there via a few shops, hunting down the kokos icecream Sara recommended.  I was in need of some sugar, afterall.  That was a fail, but I did see the Aas Pilsener there that Ed recommended.  No point buying it now though… off to the Astrid Fearnley Museum of Modern Art  - contemporary art.  *** editing nightmare here … I can’t go back to edit so please note that it is the Astrup Fearnley not Astrid…. 

Anyway, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it..it was jarring!  I ran away.  Here is one exhibition that had me needing to escape.. Maybe had I found that kokos icecream I might’ve had the energy for it: 

I ran away but the next Dayi dedicated myself to the Munch Museum

I was completely floored by the Munch Museum!!! How can one have so much to show.  Oh my.  I did not at all e peut to find on level 1 a massive collection of paintings under the banner of Abstract Expressionism. Post WW2, an art movements desperate to break away from all that had been before it.  Oh my!  I loved it.  Here are some:

And now for EDVARD MUNCH… fabulous wide range of art and too many to see in one visit.  There are three of the scream that are shown for an hour at a time.  I saw the drawing and was thrilled with that.  I’d seen the original in Bergen and yesterday that wonderful one at the National Musée.  Was thrilled with the black and white and all the other wonderful paintings and sculptures and the exhibition of his home, the different stages of his art and what was happening in his personal life and with his health.  Fantastic Museum.  Would love to return.  And the view from up high was wonderful.  In the distance the Holmenkollbakken ski jump made for the 2010 Winter Olympics and in the foreground, the Opera House with its walk on roof.  I didn’t make it there.  I had spent the entire day at the Munch Museum.  I toyed with the idea of writing about him but there is already so much written.

Indeed was the Abstract Expressionism exhibition that had the biggest impact on me and I am so very glad it was on and that I was there.  It reminded me that it was this kind of art that led to me wanting to try my hand at art.  I needed a balance to work.  I stood with that art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and felt the thrill of it and thought of Mum and decided to enrol in a short course in Newtown when I returned to Australia.  Even though my paintings are not Abstract Expressionism, that genre is invigorating, exciting, wild.  I love it.  Here are a few pictures from the Edvard Munch part of the Munch Museum.  Randomly placed but I can’t do a thing about that I’m afraid.  I need Peta Chappell here to help me with it, but alas, she is at school in Sydney, so this formatting is our lot

As soon as I tap on any to add some text, they disappear.  I’ll just leave it at this.  I loved ever minute at this Museum. I have loved all the art, seen that the contemporary art isn’t alone with the “eeeeeww” factor (thinking of the father feeding from his daughter’s breast in the National Museum and then the distressing limp, dangling bodies in the contemporary art Astrup F museum… and I didn’t even show so,e of the other atrocious images from there.  Spared you.

Anyway, that was it for my trip to Oslo.  I left the following morning on the fast efficient train to the airport, and boarded my flight to France.  I left loving this country despite not experiencing the kokos ice ream Sara had recommended not the Aas Pilsenerbeer Ed Tadzic loved so much hen he lived here.  I did however sample the chocolate and have a few for you in my suitcase, Ed! Bye bye Norway.  I’ll never forget you and might be back for Svalbard one day!