The effect of this transfer was manifold. It included a perception that this particular art was excellent, and that both its forms and its subjects were the apogee of human creative capacity. This is the art that was subsequently studied, and the resulting scholarship cemented styles, artists, specific artworks, and narratives into a very specific version of history. A history that was highly influenced by the specific identities and tastes of the collectors, was now considered universal. In keeping with the assumptions of Enlightenment thinking, and representative of national and international importance, dominant forces in society accepted these narratives. Needless to say, the collections that fed this history, also held great financial value. And all of this art, far from actually being of “universal” taste or interest, or even excellence, (whatever these values might mean) had been chosen by an extraordinarily miniscule segment of society with outsized wealth and power. As this reality went largely unacknowledged for generations, the arbitrariness of this anointing was lost, if indeed it was ever truly seen, and protocols around collections, be they public or private, replicated itself, feeding the mythology that the idiosyncrasies of desire of the very specific people and institutions that collected these objects initially were “for everyone.”

This is not to say that there isn’t wonderful art in collections assembled in this manner or that they are not worthy of scholarship. However, it is necessary to unpack their highly idiosyncratic sources and to consider these histories in any analysis of contemporary museums and collecting. Without shedding light on who and how groupings of artworks came together, and what meaning these objects bring as a group, it is clear why many consider art museums and collections “elitist;” even when such spaces are public. For many they are simply “not for me” because that person’s life is so far removed from the world from which this supposedly universally excellent work emerged. People have the capacity, of course, to enjoy things with which they are not familiar, but the claim of universality creates a harsh wall if you are the person not reflected by this universe, or perhaps even more disturbingly, the person who is specifically reflected as a colonial subject in the artwork itself. Without contending with these realities, acknowledging them, and tracing why and for whom a collection may have come together, or exploring the stories behind who or why such collections are extant and worthy of display, any public manifestation is at best incomplete, and at worst, deeply misleading and alienating. Without such explorations, contemporary institutions take the risk of reifying the social and economic hierarchies of both the past and the present, upholding the biases embedded in their collections and replicating the structures of oppression that keep the dominant cultures in society in positions of power.

Under these conditions, it is necessary to consider how collections and collecting can emerge from the miasma of their own biases and histories and support a social reckoning with the injustices of history, or at the very least, be an entry point for the creation of alternate meanings. The question becomes, how cultural spaces that hold collections might engage with diverse publics under multiple valences? Evoking ways of seeing that encapsulate the contexts of making meaning over time for different audiences and viewers. In doing so, some deeply embedded relationships between museums and their publics, as well as their patrons, might be usefully re-examined.

Modes of Display

It is interesting to consider the way the Stavanger Art Museum recently showed a portion of its collection. Like other public museums in Norway, the Museum’s collections were created via a combination of state selected artworks, through centralized acquisition committees, as well as through donations of works by private individuals. Since the mid-1990s, the museum gradually managed to allocate a small amount of its annual budget towards acquisitions. One of the gifts that made a huge impact on the museum and it’s collection is the Halvdan Hafsten collection that is the subject of the exhibition in question.

The Museum’s website describes the Hafsten collection as follows:

In 2024 contemporary artist Andreas Siqueland (b. 1973) was asked to conceive an interpretation of this concise and deep collection. Siqueland holds a particular interest in specific geographies and locales that are part of his life and understands the time he takes to observe and paint them as a political act. He tracks the changes to these environs through contemplation and looking. These are landscapes that are not idealized versions of reality, but ones in which both natural and human-induced shifts are occurring. The artist signals the human intervention in the landscape, in part, by including features of human-made interiors in the works, from which nature is often observed. It makes sense therefore that he would select artworks from the Hafsten collection that take as their subject landscapes, both exterior and interior scenes of places the artists lived and worked. Given that the historical collection includes a small number of artists, there is already an intimacy that Siqueland can leverage, amplified by the ephemera, letters, and other documentation that Hafsten accumulated related to these specific artists’ lives.

In the exhibition The Forbidden Forest, Siqueland displays the historical works from the Hafsten collection within galleries he has transformed into environments. White walls are covered floor to ceiling with panoramic paintings of landscapes ranging in color from fauvist warm reds, oranges, and pinks, to pale pastel blues and purples. Swagged curtains separate gallery spaces, their fabrics dense with pattern and color. Specific objects one might find in a home are often positioned within these spaces: a traditional bathtub, an area rug, a freestanding grandfather clock, a wooden desk and chair, often with Siqueland’s now familiar vivid brushstrokes or patterning enveloping their forms. These additions create domestic, human-scaled interiors within the encompassing gallery walls covered in fields of Siqueland’s abstracted and colorful woodlands, with the Hafsten collection works layered over them. The traditionally-scaled historical paintings and drawings are hung on the walls on Siqueland’s multicolored surfaces, positioning forests on top of forests. Publics stand in these interior/exterior environments to examine the effect and are invited to see familiar works from the collection in a new light.

While the source of the collection and the biography of its aggregator is provided as a point of departure, the show is an invitation to the public to make their own connections to this place, specific views of both household and natural worlds. They are asked to prioritize their own relationship to such landscapes, be they familiar or not. The generosity of this invitation is where meaning is produced. While largely a formal intervention, Siqueland proposes a re-organization of whose knowledge is central to the experience of this exhibition. The invitation is clear: What is your relationship to these environments? What do they communicate? Do they resonate? Feel alien? What is your relationship to the shifts we can witness if we pay attention over time?

Perhaps it is the open-endedness of this proposal that reframes the specificity of the Hafsten collection, the idiosyncrasy of which is clearly delineated in the narrowness of its subjects (only eight artists are in the collection) and the depth of the work collected (even beyond artworks themselves, significant papers and ephemera related to these artists tell parallel stories). From several angles one artist’s design of a new installation of the collection and the spaces in which it is displayed enacts a simultaneous retrieval of the narratives created by Halvdan Hafsten himself as a collector, the artists whose works are included in the collection, within the context of a new, meta-artwork by Andreas Siqueland. The latter becomes a guide through the collection, posing open questions about place, geography, landscape, human presences and impacts, and the changes one can observe to these environs, to publics entering these galleries.

In the context of Norway, there are certainly ways for the private sector to participate in the funding and support of museums and other cultural institutions. However, the Fredriksen collection’s relationship with the National Museum does not provide enough public benefit to warrant the rewards granted to the FFACL. Let’s begin with the fact that FFACL has not promised the collection to the National Museum as an eventual gift. Despite the financial and exhibition-related benefits of providing access to the works to the Museum, the reality is that the artworks in the Fredriksen Family Collection will never actually become a public good. This means that any resources (including cultural capital, curatorial expertise, marketing supports, etc) that the Museum extends for the display of the collection as well as acquisition of new works, will significantly benefit the Fredriksen family both reputationally and financially. These benefits are significantly greater than the financial support and reputational esteem granted to the Museum by this arrangement. Further, while the Fredriksen Family Collection remains in the private realm of the family, being displayed, and augmented under the auspices and prestige of the National Museum, FFACL will inevitably see an increase in the financial value of the collection as a whole. And, for the purchase of new works to the collection, access to artworks in the marketplace can be additionally guaranteed with the Museum’s connections and affiliation. These realities derive not only from the intrinsic value of the works collected to date, but specifically from the publicity and reputational lift that the association and display of the work at the Museum provides; the excellence assumed by publics about the contents of museums is conferred to the collection via the cultural capital of the museum itself.

The only way to ensure that the public nature of the National Museum is not compromised by the relationship with the Fredriksen Family Collection is to make the collection a public good by promising it will be donated to the Museum. However, even if this were to occur another challenge awaits, and it is one that has plagued many institutions relying on the private wealth of individuals.

Through the creation of this collection, a portion of the wealth Fredriksen has aggregated is materialized in the form of a group of artworks. The collection’s meanings therefore are not limited to those of the artworks themselves or those that might emerge via public engagement. The full story of the collection’s roots and realities cannot be ignored. The ethics of how this particular fortune was amassed, making it possible for the Fredriksen Family Collection to exist, is central to the story. Through the arrangement with the family, The National Museum has promoted a narrative about the collection without acknowledging the ethical realities of what it takes to accumulate this scale of wealth. Through these arrangements, the Museum helps convert a portion of the Fredriksen wealth into a display of valuable artworks as a point of national pride. Herein, the Fredriksen Family Collection, like those of kings and popes before them, embodies a hidden narrative of the exploitation of natural and human resources required to assemble the wealth necessary to put such a collection together. Without expressly engaging with these complexities, the Museum is not only artwashing a patron’s wealth, but also making their own stated values highly suspect.

Under these circumstances, it is not possible to ethically display the collection at The National Museum. Perhaps if the collection were a promised gift to the Museum to be displayed alongside a transparent history of what made the collection possible, the Museum might meet what I believe are its minimum ethical obligations. Doing so would avoid the Museum subsidizing a private financial asset that ultimately belongs to the Fredriksen family, and would require a dive into the complexities of how the family’s wealth came to be, articulating a narrative beyond the Fredriksen sisters and their mother’s love of art. I am not naive; I recognize that such revelations are not appealing for donors. However, for museums to remain relevant to contemporary society, they must engage in the material conditions of life, including the messy parts.

We are all complicit in the forces of capitalism that dominate our lives, however, the kind of decisions and behaviours that it takes to create great fortunes nearly always relies on exploitation. Without, at minimum, revealing these realities in a straightforward way, the Museum continues to uphold structural systems of profound inequity. It risks not only failing to serve a public good, but betraying its stated values by amplifying the increasingly yawning gaps between a very small group of ultra-wealthy individuals in society and everyone else. This inevitably harkens back to the days of royalty or the church determining what art is important and excellent in their own drives to consolidate power and wealth, and shows how little things have actually changed in some very significant portions of the cultural sphere.

These two highly specific cases of display and potential acquisition of collections are useful in illustrating how contemporary museums might uphold or interrupt the narratives of their and societies’ pasts. If spaces for cultural experiences are important to cultivate the imagination, then equity within museums seems to me to be paramount. Returning to the starting of this essay, we should care about museum and cultural spaces, about their ways of doing their work, and what structural biases they uphold.

Some have asked me why I continue to think that museums can change, or why they even matter, or how a shift in the perceived and real elitism in places of culture is relevant today. I remain committed to these spaces because imagination is a key component of radical thought. As spaces for imagination, museums and cultural institutions are locations for its cultivation. These spaces also so closely mirror the inequities of society, that if we can transform them, they might provide clues and pathways to shift larger social, economic, and political realities. From the societal microcosm of the cultural institution, we might hope to translate such efforts, and nurture societal change. And even if the largest or more established of our cultural spaces cannot make room for this kind of analysis, it is necessary for other, more intrepid organizations to do so, and for publics to bring their own readings into such spaces. This, in the end, may be where art happens most fiercely.