This year marks the 50 year anniversary of Elisabeth Haarr’s (b. 1945) first solo exhibition in Oslo, which took place at Oslo Kunstforening. As part of our programming, we reflect upon our own exhibition history, Elisabeth Haarr is again invited to exhibit, this time together with the artist Marianne Hurum (b.1978). 

For more than five decades, Elisabeth Haarr’s artistic practice has been constantly evolving through her exploration of new materials, themes and formats in her mainly textile based artwork. A strong political, feminist and social engagement runs like a red line throughout her career. For these reasons, Haarr continues to be one of Norway’s most central contemporary artists, this is recently manifest by Festspillutstillingen at Bergen Kunsthall (2021).

In recent years, Elisabeth Haarr has been collaborating with the artist Mariannne Hurum, a painter more than thirty years Haarr’s junior. Hurum, like Haarr, has been engaged with social and political issues through her artistic career as well as through her previous position as a chair of UKS, the Young Artist’s society, which organizes and secures rights for young artists. 

Their meetings form a playful exploration of watercolour as a kind of artistic commonplace. On several occasions, Haarr and Hurum have painted to-gether in Haarr’s garden in Kristiansand. 

The resulting artworks are energetic and colorful expressions on large surfaces. While they differ quite a bit from each artist’s individual work, the gestures and push and pull of the watercolor succeed in communicating the collaborative process. These works capture in equal parts, the pending processes and dialogues, as well as finished results.

Oslo Kunstforening wishes to show how these two artists enrich and influence each other’s artistic production. In addition to the collaborative works, they will present individual works in separate rooms.