Edvard Munch: Infinite

Edvard Munch was one of Modernism's most significant artists. His tenacious experimentation within painting, graphic art, drawing, sculpture, photo and film has given him a unique position in Norwegian as well as international art history.

One sole truth about Edvard Munch’s art does not exist. The answers depend on the questions we pose. Twenty-two Munch experts have written 150 texts about well-known and lesser-known works from Munchmuseet’s collection. Through these multiple ways of seeing, Munch’s lifework emerges as infinite. And this book, as an exercise in the art of seeing. The book invites the reader to explore the world of Edvard Munch — his ideas, processes, and the profoundly human topics that occupied him and that still affect us today. Through a wide selection from the museum’s collection, you can experience the richness of Munch’s artistic career and his unrelenting drive to experiment and innovate.

Hans Arentz studied art history at the University of Oslo, and for the past two decades has been a curator at the Stenersen Museum and Munchmuseet. Mieke Bal is an independent cultural theorist, critic, video artist and curator. Her work is based on the cultural analysis of subjects such as gender, migratory culture, psychoanalysis and critique of capitalism. Patricia G. Berman holds the Feldberg Chair of Art at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, specialising in modern and contemporary art, photography and propaganda studies. Kari J. Brandtzæg is a curator at the museum and has curated the exhibitions The Swan Princess. Russian Art 1880–1910 (2019), Per Krohg and the French Influence (2019), and Head by Head. Cronqvist|Bjørlo|Munch (2017/2018). Magne Bruteig studied art history at the University of Oslo and was employed at the museum from 1998 until he retired in 2018. He worked in the section for prints and drawings – during his last years as senior curator. Hilde Bøe studied literary theory at the University of Oslo and is curator of Munch’s writings at the museum. Signe Endresen is an art historian with a PhD from the University of Oslo where she wrote her dissertation on Edvard Munch. At the museum she works with the collection on paper (drawings, prints and photos). Ute Kuhlemann Falck has a PhD in Art History from University College London. Since 2011 she has served as senior curator at the museum – for the most part working with Edvard Munch’s art on paper. Reinhold Heller is Professor Emeritus of Art History and Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago. He is author of Edvard Munch: The Scream (1973) and Munch: His Life and Work (1984). Frank Høifødt is an art historian with a PhD from the University of Oslo (1995), and has been employed at the museum in multiple stages – in positions ranging from assistant to senior curator. Lasse Jacobsen is research librarian at the museum and has extensive experience from other art libraries. He has been engaged in many projects at the museum, including the digital archive of Munch’s writings, eMunch.no, and in numerous exhibitions. Nikita Mathias is senior concept developer for digital communication at the museum, where he creates digital and analogue public events, and also researches and collaborates on publications. Allison Morehead is Associate Professor of Art History and Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, Canada. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago with a dissertation on Symbolism and French experimental psychology, which was transformed into the book Nature’s Experiments and the Search for Symbolist Form, published in 2017. Trine Otte Bak Nielsen received her MA in Art History at the University of Oslo in 2006. She has been a curator at the museum since 2014, where she has curated exhibitions such as Yonder – Edvard Munch and Nature (2020), and Moonrise. Marlene Dumas & Edvard Munch (2018/2019). Ingeborg Winderen Owesen has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oslo and an MA in Aesthetics and Visual Art from the University of Essex, UK. She has previously written about Munch and Nietzsche and about Munch and feminism. Gustav Jørgen Pedersen earned his PhD in Art History from the University of Oslo with the dissertation On the Pictorial Thinking of Death: A Study in Martin Heidegger’s Unthought Art History of Being Regarding Edvard Munch’s The Sick Child and Metabolism (2017. Petra Pettersen received her degree in art history from the University of Oslo. She is a curator at the museum, and has curated numerous exhibitions since 1996. Jon-Ove Steihaug earned his PhD in Art History from the University of Oslo with a dissertation on the Norwegian painter Bendik Riis (2008) and is today head of the Department of Exhibitions and Collections at the museum. Sivert Thue is an art historian educated at the University of Oslo. Since 2017 Thue has led the project that is tasked with digitising a catalogue raisonné of Edvard Munch’s entire oeuvre. Lars Toft-Eriksen has a PhD in Art History from the University of Oslo (2020), is a curator at the museum, and has curated a number of exhibitions that range from early Modernism to contemporary art. Øystein Ustvedt is a curator at the National Museum in Oslo, working primarily with 20th century visual art, and has a Magister Degree in Art History from the University of Oslo (1993). Gerd Woll earned her Magister Degree in Art History at the University of Oslo in 1972 with a dissertation on Edvard Munch’s Workers Frieze. She served as curator at the museum from 1973 to 2010 – up until 2003 as senior curator of the section of prints and drawings.